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 teenagers 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 do that only when we work with communities, draw together indigenous and Western approaches to knowledge and bring the best researchers from different disciplines here and overseas to take a holistic approach rather than address health, wellbeing and learning issues in isolation.
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Improving the potential for all young New Zealanders to lead healthy and successful lives
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Collaborative research and science excellence
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News and events
Multi-million dollar funding collaboration to improve child health
A Better Start, one of the country’s 11 National Science Challenges, and Cure Kids, New Zealand’s largest national child health research charity, have joined forces to create a new contestable fund in child health.
read moreNational Science Challenge tackles childhood obesity, literacy and mental health
A new National Science Challenge – A Better Start: E Tipu e Rea – aims to reduce obesity and improve learning skills and mental health in New Zealand children.
read moreTamaki College hosts launch of A Better Start
Tamaki College in Auckland’s Glen Innes hosted the launch of A Better Start by Science and Innovation Minister Steven Joyce.
read moreYoung people the focus of new Science Challenge
Science and Innovation Minister Steven Joyce today launched “A Better Start” – E Tipu e Rea – New Zealand’s 10th National Science Challenge.
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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.
