Matt, as one of the print media reporters who emailed you asking if you would talk to me, I have to say, it wasn’t an easy email to write.

However.

Here’s the thing. On the one hand you say you saw your story “twisted through various forms of fiction” and some “respectful space” for you and your family would have been appropriate given the circumstances.

On the other hand you say that that time wouldn’t have been so hard had the “actual truth” been communicated.

How are the media supposed to get the story right, if they don’t ask the person/people involved what happened? Where are they supposed to get the “actual truth” from?

It’s a genuine question Matt. I’d love some ideas about how to tread carefully/with respect while still getting the story straight.

Regards,

Imogen

Jetstar Media Awards... they'd be cheap, BYO affairs full of tangerine coloured people in tight outfits and inappropriate shoes. And woah betide and one who turns up late!

... really doesn't work for me.

Me neither.

<quote> "The single most important factor - that a simplistic focus on financial accounts misses - is that KidsCan receives massive in-kind and non-cash support which it cannot account for under current charities and accounting standards law in New Zealand," Mr Shera said.<quote>

Currious statement. So are the charities and accounting standards laws broken OR have the clever ways to by-pass them - the unaccountable ways - become so common place no one looks at financial accounts as an reliable indication of what's going where anymore? Maybe the new accounting system measures in audience size, front page space and little black windbreakers...

But the police school safety advisors are telling us not to to put the children in dark coloured raincoats, as drivers (especially when raining) find it harder to see little people in dark colours

True.

I don't think the kids would really care what colour they were... although older boys might struggle with pink (unless you're making an anti-fashion fashion statement - or something).

I think it's black with a fern so it looks like All Black gear - which ADIDAS sponsor no..?

Yes, but do they need this clothing? Would they be otherwise coatless and discalced? Does the charity identify need or is it just handing out branded goods?

I've always assumed there's a need because the teachers/parents seem so thrilled to have the goods.

But it's a good question - is there a need or are the kids just happy to have shiny free stuff? Perhaps one for the schools that get the goods - is there a need or can they simply put the stuff to good use?

Has anybody identified any need for the raincoats and shoes that KidsCan provides? It looks to me like another opportunity for Adidas (which supplies the branded coats) to obtain yet more free publicity.

Yes, and the No.1 Shoe Warehouse seems to supply the shoes, for its own promotional return. It can seem that the chief purpose of KidsCan is less to supply needed goods than to supply promotional opportunities.

While I'm equally concerned about where all this money is going and how come it costs $1.5million to raise $400,000 - I have to admit, all the school's I've been to in south Auckland that get these raincoats, shoes, lunch boxes etc etc - the kids are all decked out in them. Whole classrooms of kids in the rain (more like windbreakers) coats.

Is it free advertising? Probably, but they do look chuffed to have a little black raincoat with a silver fern on it. And the schools seem happy to have shoes to they can give to kids who turn up in with no shoes (that are visibly branded I don't think) in winter.

Would it make it better if all the goods were un-branded or in the school's colours...?

Oh dear - I was kidding about the school ball.

I've never felt so much like a walking wedding cake in my whole life, my ball dress was that layered.

I've only just started reading the 103 page report but aren't these the more interesting bits...?

"All of the students (100%) interviewed at the AE centres in our study, told us that they enjoyed being at AE and 95% said they enjoyed learning again, since attending AE."

"The one-to-one help they were receiving from the AE tutors was helping them re-establish their confidence in their ability to learn and increasing their optimism and beliefs about their future."

"Almost all students had enjoyed learning at primary school and had achieved reasonably well there."

"Once students join alternative education there appear to be limited processes and structures for them to return to mainstream secondary schools. They appear to be “lost to the system”

Don't those bits raise for more interesting and serious questions...?

Tony - even things that fit in the literacy and numeracy box aren't safe - as in Adult Community Education, programmes funded by TEC's Foundation Learning Pool grant (including literacy and numeracy classes run in schools for parents), Environschools... doh.

What an odd story.

This statement strikes me:

"It said 78 per cent of girls in the system were using marijuana well ahead of the 44 per cent of American girls in a similar system using marijuana."

That's not the school's problem surely.

Isn't the fact these kids use drugs more indicative of their surrounding and perhaps the things that landed them in an AE school in the first place?

I did a story not so long ago on an AE in Otara and I wasn't sure what to expect.

What I found was intensely proud kids trying to make the most out of a billy-basic environment.

Are they intimidating? Possibly - but that's probably because I was there as a journalist who they felt was looking in on them - having a prod to see what weird things they'd do or say. I don't think they could see how I was there to pen a story about what they'd achieved... I guess because, apparently, AE kids don't achieve, they're too busy smoking pot.

I'm sure they already feel like outsiders and at 14/15 yrs old they're painfully aware of how NOT cool they are - they can't be in rugby teams, don't have an art department, there's no tuck shop and nope, no cool ICT department to learn about multimedia.

Personally I think it would suck to be at an AE school as a teenager - they don't even have a school ball - but still, these kids turn up day in day out from what I was told and I think that's down to the teachers they work with and the kid's determination to achieve something.

Despite the odds.