More pūtea given for web accessibility

In December 2023, we closed off our first-ever web accessibility-focused grant round. With only $100,000 to give away, we received a whopping $ 1 million worth of funding requests.

In April 2024, we shared the news of the successful grantees. 55% of the pūtea was awarded to tangata whaikaha-led organisations, and 45% was awarded to Māori organisations (in line with our priority groups).

The community need in this area is clear. Therefore, we have used the 2024–2025 financial budget to award grants to a second cohort of applicants who will further the mission of making the Aotearoa Internet accessible.

Full list of the successful grantees:

Alzheimers Northland 

$5,580

Alzheimers Northland works to enable people with dementia to have a dignified and fulfilling life, providing information, and services to enhance a greater understanding of a dementia diagnosis and to support people to live well and plan for the future. They will work with an experienced local supplier to upgrade their website and make it fit for purpose. 

SPAN Charitable Trust (SkillWise) 

$10,000

SkillWise’s mission is to work in partnership with people with lived experience of intellectual disability, and their families and whānau, to assist in creating the lives they want for themselves. They facilitate options for people in training, the arts, volunteering, employment and recreation. They will be increasing the accessibility of their website, and making the content more relevant to supporting people with intellectual disabilities. 

Rural Youth and Adult Literacy Trust 

$10,000

The Rural Youth and Adult Literacy Trust provides free reading and writing tuition to isolated/rural teenagers and adults who missed out on these skills at school. To enable their audience to benefit from their website, they will build an Easy Read website with informational videos, text readers per paragraph and forms with a voice response option. 

Arts Integrated 

$10,000

Arts Integrated provides education support, guidance, training and encouragement for disabled people to experience and develop their performing arts talents and abilities within New Zealand. They will undertake website development to look and feel more accessible plus partner with the local design school to offer a qualification in digital design specifically for the disability community. 

Addington.Net Trading as TechMate  

$10,000

TechMate provides affordable access to information and communication technologies alongside a friendly, safe place for people to learn to use their digital devices and technology. They will receive training based on a review of their website so that their staff and volunteer team have the skills to make their websites more accessible to users, and with the intention of supporting their neighbouring charities who occupy Christchurch Community House. 

InsideOUT Kōaro

$10,000

InsideOUT Kōaro works directly with young rainbow youth in schools to help develop, maintain, and support QSAs (Queer Straight Alliances), and advocating for students’ wellbeing. We provide guidance, resources, and professional development to school staff to better equip them in supporting their students. They will undertake an audit and remediation work to improve the accessibility of their website, to ensure their resources and services are accessible to the many rainbow rangatahi and whānau with accessibility needs.

Miharo Murihiku Trust 

$10,000

Miharo Murihiku Trust is a Māori and Pasifika cultural arts trust based in Murihiku | Invercargill. With a focus on engaging youth in arts, culture and education they hold annual marquee events including the Murihiku Polyfest and the Central Lakes Polyfest. Following an accessibility audit, they will implement upgrades and provide training and guidelines for their team to equip them to maintain and improve accessibility as their website evolves over time. 

Wellington Homeless Women's Trust, Te Whare Nukunoa

$10,000

Wellington Homeless Women’s Trust (WHWT) provides transitional housing and holistic support services to wāhine experiencing homelessness in the Wellington region. Their kaupapa Māori whare, Te Whare Nukunoa, supports and houses up to 14 women for 3-6 months and continues to provide support for 2-3 months after their stay. They will complete an accessibility audit and conduct focus groups with tenants, staff and community to inform changes that will be implemented in phases to progressively improve the website.

Every Body is a Treasure CT  

$10,000 

Every Body is a Treasure Trust is an organization that teaches peace through teaching well-being and creativity skills. They largely youth led, including their magazine Create Happy, which amplifies youth voices. Their audience is rangatahi, many of whom are on the spectrum, have mental health challenges, are disabled, or are part of the rainbow community. They will implement captioning for all prerecorded audio content and produce spoken word recordings of the articles that the students produce for the magazine. 

Multiple Sclerosis Auckland 

$5,500

Multiple Sclerosis Auckland is a charitable organisation that exists to inform, educate and provide personalised support services to people who have Multiple Sclerosis, and their families, friends and carers. They are building a new website that will not only provide better and more accurate information to assist people with MS on their journey with the disease but also design it to be as accessible as possible to meet the challenges associated with the MS disease. 

Arts Access Aotearoa 

$10,000

Arts Access Aotearoa facilitates a national disability-led access and inclusion programme, aimed at increasing access to the arts for Deaf and disabled people. They will to design and build a more accessible website with features that will support their users such audio versions of all written content, and being able to upload audio directly onto the website. They will also complete usability test and train their for staff to ensure sustainability.

Rest Assured Respite Charitable Trust

$9,775

Rest Assured Respite Charitable Trust work to improve quality of like and support those living with Myalgic Encephalomylitis (ME), Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) , Fibromyalgia (FM) and those with Long Covid and like symptoms. Many of their members suffer from cognitive issues, so their new website will provide more and easier access to and representation of their services for those they support. 

Migrants Against Acceptable Standard of Health Aotearoa (MAASHA) / Disabled Peoples Assembly NZ (DPA) 

$3,767

Migrants Against the Acceptable Standard of Health Aotearoa (MAASHA) is a collective led by migrants and refugees, campaigning to end disability and health-related discrimination in Aotearoa New Zealand’s immigration system. They will increase the accessibility of the content on their “Who we are”, “What’s ASH?” and “Why end ASH now?” pages translated into Easy Read and New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) to ensure it is available to their audience, specifically people with learning disabilities, people who speak English as a second language, and Deaf people who use NZSL.