The Aunties 101: about us

Our Aunty In Charge is Jackie Clark. This is her 12th year of working with people who have experienced lifetime family violence.

Please note: we only operate in Auckland.

If you’re curious about what Jackie and The Aunties do, it is simply this:

• Jackie provides intensive and consistent emotional support for the Aunties whānau, which is a static group of 28 women. 

• We facilitate the provision of material donations, stuff, and money, to the Aunties whānau of 27 women healing from intimate partner/sexual violence, from a community of people called The Aunties.

• We provide material donations for a number of community organisations and their clients.

• Jackie also provides advice and guidance to around 950 people a year around domestic violence and complex situations where getting personalised advice is often difficult.

Aunty Phil also works with the women. There are only two of us who work on the frontline, as it were.

Our Board

The Aunties Board consists of 8 people. These are all people Jackie has hand picked for their skills and life experience.

• Chairperson: Moeroa

• Secretary: Paul

• Treasurer: Hils

• Board members: Jackie, Phil, Jackson, Anna, and Emily

Our patron is Michèle A’Court, and the rest of the Aunties are all of you who give money and stuff to the people who make up our whānau of women.

Our kaupapa

The Aunties believe that it is crucial to recognise, acknowledge, and nurture the power we all have within. The Aunties whānau are a grouping of indigenous women who are powerful and extraordinary in their survival. As an organisation, it is our job to ensure they have the practical resources they need so that they can focus on healing, and to remind them of how powerful they are, with every interaction, and at every turn.

Basically, as an organisation, we walk alongside women who are healing from abusive relationships. We provide material needs for 950 families a year, if not more, getting them what they have asked for or their agency has asked for.

We additionally work closely with the women in our Aunties whānau, there are 28. We provide a monthly financial koha to these women, and these women only. This is a model that primarily works on provision of attachement, trauma informed and power led -- built on sustained and long lasting relationships, of the women’s choosing. A community of mutual support. One of the women is our Chairperson.

Our legacy is the abruption of violence in these women's lives - and the generational benefits that come from people healing extensively. It only works because of the small number of women in the Aunties Whanau. We are hoping to have an academic review of our work, and it's benefits, in the next year.

Separately to this. Jackie's job is to advocate and educate around domestic violence and social justice issues as they relate to the women we work with. She attends family group conferences, court dates, appointments with lawyers, agencies, etc. Whatever the women in our whanau need her to do, she's there to do it. Her work also entails being support in a peripheral capacity for over 1000 people a year.

Jackie started doing this mahi part time in 2013, and started full time in 2016.

Our operational costs are currently only 30% of our total income. You can view our most recent and historical charity financial returns here. 

The one thing Jackie does not do is work with clients of refuge organisations. All of the women in The Aunties whānau are out of their historic abusive relationships. Jackie does not, as some people believe, assist people to get out of violent relationships. That job is done by refuge services, and the police. 

How do you decide who gets help?

Our primary financial focus are our whanau of women and 85% of your donations are spent on them alone.

Anyone can reach out to Jackie for emotional support around the violence in their lives.

If you have any other questions, feel free to contact Jackie by email or phone.  

How can I donate items to The Aunties?

If you think you can provide anything on this list please email Phil (admin@aunties.co.nz), Jackie (whaeapower@aunties.co.nz), OR message our Facebook page. Tell us exactly what you have, and we will get back to you quickly with more information. Make sure all bedding/clothing/towels are freshly washed, please.

We DO NEED clothing, bedding, towels, undies, pajamas, socks ALL the time. And we need whatever we tell you we need. Keep an eye on the Facebook page.

How is The Aunties funded?

Primarily by you. We have historically applied for only a very select few grants. We have partial salary funding from the Gattung Foundation.

We don’t get any other funding apart from the Aunties themselves. Private donations – either one-offs or in the form of automatic payments. Up to now, these donations have sustained us well, but that is no longer the case.

We need help with regular donors who are willing to contribute to our people account - and Jackie's salary. Look for our donations campaign which we are launching shortly.

About Jackie

Jackie was a recipient of a  Women’s Fund awards 2018, was a nominee for NZ Woman Of The Year Awards, New Zealander of The Year, was category winner and supreme winner of the Women Of  Influence Awards 2018 and was a medallist in the Local Hero Of The Year Awards, 2017. She recieved a QSM in the 2019 New Year Honours List. 

Jackie is available to come and talk to your community group, for a koha to The Aunties.

Our thanks to you

We thank you for your compassion and care, and your ongoing emotional and practical support of the women that we walk alongside.