Turning Kūmara into Community Wellbeing

Left to right: Dickie Humphries (Head of Community Impact at Auckland Council), Kuli Taumoefolau (Chair of New Zealand Kahoa Tauleva Trust) and Toleafoa Ray Tuala (Healthy Families South Auckland) Healthy Families South Auckland and Auckland Council recently saw the social, economic and health impact that something as simple as kūmara can have for whānau in […]

Start from where you are

You don’t need a gym membership. You don’t need a sport. You don’t need to be ready. The only place to start is where you already are, and the letterbox is far enough. South Auckland has gyms. It has swimming pools, parks, courts and sports clubs. If you know where to look, the options are […]

Growing new traditions for healthier futures

In South Auckland, a group of families are beginning something new. Not just a programme, but the start of new traditions that could shape the health of generations to come. We are currently in week one of testing a co-designed prototype created by participants who are living with type 2 diabetes, are pre-diabetic, or are […]

When silence is inherited: rethinking mental health through a whanau lens

In South Auckland, there’s a quiet truth sitting in many of our homes. It’s not always loud. It doesn’t always show up in crisis. But it lives in the spaces between our conversations or more honestly, the lack of them. For many of us, the way we learned to communicate was shaped long before we […]

Healthy Families South Auckland releases new reports with Health Coalition Aotearoa

Healthy Families South Auckland and Health Coalition Aotearoa have released two new reports highlighting key policy actions needed to improve access to affordable, nutritious food for communities across South Auckland. Titled “He kai kei aku ringa – There is food in my hands”, the foundation and community reports respond to rising levels of food poverty […]

Celebrating a decade of partnership: Healthy Families South Auckland & AUT

With the Healthy Families South Auckland and AUT partnership reaching a decade milestone in 2026, Lead Systems Innovator Julio Bin and Senior Lecturer Lisa McEwan reflect on a successful 2025 programme, why this partnership is important and what opportunities lie ahead. 2025 highlights and the Good Food Journal project As Healthy Families South Auckland (HFSA) […]

Korero Mai closing the communication gaps in our homes 

Kōrero Mai began at the grassroots with whānau not as a product, but as a response to what parents and rangatahi in South Auckland told us they needed: safer, more honest ways to talk with each other, says Systems Innovator, Veranika Seiuli from Healthy Families South Auckland The Cause Collective (HFSA).    “Through wānanga and co-design, whānau shared the real barriers they face, role […]

Healthy Families South Auckland – 2025 Year in Review 

Reconnecting people, purpose and prevention  As 2025 draws to a close, Healthy Families South Auckland – The Cause Collective, reflects on a year defined by connection, to each other, to our whakapapa, and to the systems that shape our everyday wellbeing. Across every strand of our work, from Oranga Whakapapa to Mental Health & Wellbeing, Food Systems and Movement & Sport, […]

ImpactLab report highlights social value of Whenua to Whenua programme

A new report from ImpactLab provides comprehensive insights into the social impact of one of the initiatives created and implemented by the Food Hub Collective, an organisation supported by Healthy Families South Auckland. The GoodMeasure Foundations and Forecast Report focuses on the Food Hub Collective’s Whenua to Whenua experiential learning programme, a series of initiatives […]