A further 12 proposals totalling $15.7 million have been approved by Ministers through the Māori Communities Covid-19 Fund to build resilience and continue to support vaccination uptake.
A health worker prepares a vaccine for the Te Whānau O Waipareira vax team who were vaccinating locals in Papakura in Auckland as part of a Whānau Ora campaign last November. Photo: 2021 Getty Images
The contract amounts range from $138,000 to $4.8m and focus on areas with low vaccination rates and high Māori populations in rural, isolated, and low socioeconomic areas.
This includes whānau living in poverty, unemployed, without permanent housing, and needing support for mental health disorders.
They directly support whānau, hapū and hapori to build Covid Protection Framework (CPF) resilience enabling leadership within communities and tailoring support across a region to suit each community.
Services include education and awareness, staff safety, protecting whakapapa, community facilities and engagements and communications.
They range from using marae and iwi properties to support their response, upskilling community members to become vaccinators, mobile vaccinations, vaccination events, incentives and developing material to target high-need groups such as specific age groups or gangs.
A woman encouraged people to get vaccinated as part of a Whānau Ora throughout Auckland and Northland. Photo: 2021 Getty Images
Following the latest allocation, MCCF agencies will recommend more proposals to Ministers for the remaining $30.5m in the coming weeks.
Agencies are considering a large pipeline of proposals, some of which have been or will be scaled to fit the level of funding available and the need to complete the initiatives by 31 May 2022.
Funding is limited and not all proposals will be recommended for funding based on fund criteria, competing needs and priorities across the motu. These may be considered in future should fund settings or funding priorities change.
With the remaining fund putea (finance) the MCCF agencies will continue to target areas of high need, and they are encouraging providers to talk to their regional agency contacts about how money can be spent in their communities.
A total of $72.08m, covering 85 contracts, was approved by Ministers in the final two months of 2021, with $53m already paid out.
Since the fund was established, the Māori first dose vaccination rate has increased from 69 to 90 percent of those eligible and the second dose rate from 49 to 86 percent for people 12 and older.
When the fund was originally established, $58.5m (of a total $120 million) was allocated for vaccination support (not including $1.5m for departmental expenses).
High demand and opportunities identified by providers resulted in an extra $13.5m being reprioritised to support vaccination uptake, leaving $46.4m to be allocated in phase 2 to support short-term resilience initiatives (up to 31 May 2022).