A Better Start: E Tipu e Rea
National Science ChallengeBetter science together for a better start in life
Our children are the future
Every child should have the best possible start in life. To achieve this A Better Start researchers are creating the tools and methods to predict, prevent and intervene early so children have a healthy weight, are successful learners and they can access the tools they need to look after their mental health.
A Better Start is the National Science Challenge working to help children, teenagers, their whanau and family achieve the best possible start in life. Our job is to find practical, evidence-based solutions that make a measurable difference for tamariki.
We can achieve this by working with communities, drawing together indigenous and Western approaches to knowledge and bringing together the best researchers from different disciplines here and overseas to take a holistic approach rather than addressing health, wellbeing and learning issues in isolation.
$1 MILLION RESEARCH FUNDING TO IMPROVE PASIFIKA CHILD HEALTH
Applications now open!
From the Director
A Better Start: E Tipu e Rea has more than 160 researchers delivering excellent science to give our tamariki a better start in life. They come from many different disciplines and organisations, but are united in their commitment. Our researchers share a collaborative approach and through the He Awa Whiria (braided rivers) model weave together knowledge from differing sources that flow together to progress the wellbeing of tamariki.
Ngā mihi,
Professor Wayne Cutfield
Challenge Director
About
The Science
Collaborative research and science excellence
News
Updates & events from A Better Start: E Tipu e Rea
News and events
Meet A Better Start researcher Tufulasi Taleni
Tufulasi Taleni is part of A Better Start’s Successful Learning team. Here he talks about his wish for this year, the best piece of advice his father gave him, and the best book he has read recently. Can you tell us a little about your current A Better Start project?...
Read our July newsletter
Say hello to our latest newsletter! Read it HERE Find out all about our 12 new child health research projects, our new $1M Pasifika Research Fund, the Better Start programme to lift literacy skills of 70,000 tamariki, how the Challenge has helped inform the Well Child...
Geography’s affect on young people’s mental health – RNZ interview
Listen to researcher Dr Matt Hobbs talk to Radio New Zealand’s Nine To Noon programme about an innovative new research project, funded by A Better Start National Science Challenge and Cure Kids, to measure the mental health of young people who grow up in areas with...
Kia ora to our new Board Chair
Kia ora to Dr Pat Tuohy, who is A Better Start E Tipu e Rea's new Board Chair. Pat brings with him a wealth of experience in the health sector and until recently was the Ministry of Health's Chief Advisor for Child and Youth Health. He has spent 10 years as a senior...
A Better Start informs next steps for Well Child review
A Better Start E Tipu e Rea National Science Challenge has helped to inform the next steps for the country’s Well Child Tamariki Ora programme, which provides health and development screening for children from birth to five years. A major review, commissioned by the...
A Better Start Literacy Approach gets $10 million boost
An innovative research-based approach to how New Zealand children are taught to read – developed with funding from A Better Start National Science Challenge – is to be extended across the country with a $10 million Ministry of Education contract. The Better Start...
E Tipu e Rea
Grow and Branch Forth
E Tipu e Rea is A Better Start’s Māori name.
In 1949, shortly before his death, Māori leader and scholar Sir Āpirana Turupa Ngata of Ngāti Porou wrote into the autograph book of schoolgirl Rangi Bennett a passage about his vision for Māori youth.
E tipu e rea mō ngā rā o tō ao
Ko tō ringa ki ngā rākau a te Pākehā
Hei ora mō te tinana
Ko tō ngākau ki ngā tāonga a ō tīpuna Māori
Hei tikitiki mō tō māhuna
Ko tō wairua ki tō atua
Nānā nei ngā mea katoa.
Grow and branch forth for the days destined to you
Your hands to the tools of the Pākehā
For the welfare of your body
Your heart to the treasures of your ancestors
adornments for your brow
Your spirit to god
Who made all things.
