Reading Time: 2 minutes Over a year ago, the story of Dhia Ugla featured in Onehunga Community News where he stood out as an inspirational figure who has succeeded against all odds. Now he is busy adding another chapter to his incredible life story. Dhia came to New Zealand in 2018 as a refugee from Iraq, having spent three years trapped ...
Reading Time: 2 minutes Students at two local schools are receiving free lunches, thanks to the government-funded Lunches in Schools programme, Ka Ora, Ka Ako. Since its launch in 2019, the school lunch initiative has been providing free and healthy lunches to thousands of children throughout the country. Royal Oak Intermediate School (ROI) has been added to the lunch ...
Reading Time: 2 minutes In February, staff and students at Cornwall Park District School (CPDS) celebrated a milestone – its 100th year! In a low-key ceremony, the school’s oldest girl, Grace Sutcliffe, and youngest boy, Mark Xu, cut the ceremonial ribbon, and then the oldest boy, Dylan Wright, and the youngest girl, Charlize Lau, helped to dig up the time ...
Reading Time: 2 minutes Vehicles using our residential streets as through-roads, and travelling at high speed, is a serious and pressing issue in Onehunga and surrounding suburbs. (Crash site – the Mesarich’s car was written off by the collision) Late last year, local business owners, Mark and Tania Mesarich, narrowly escaped serious injury after a car sped through a ...
Reading Time: 2 minutes The Community Cat Coalition (CCC) has received a grant from the Maungakiekie-Tāmaki Local Board to fund a cat de-sexing project in Onehunga. CCC is a community network which helps abandoned, feral and abused cats and kittens. They finance and facilitate trap-neuter-return (TNR) and they also feed and manage de-sexed community cats, and provide veterinary treatment ...
Reading Time: 2 minutes A youth mentoring trust, based at the once-derelict Te Papapa Bowling Club, is providing athlete development, tutoring and life-skills programmes to at-risk male youth who have dreams of a professional career in sport. Pro-Pare Athlete Management Trust (PAMT) chairman, George Gavet, encourages the teenagers to pursue their dream career outside of rugby league, and works ...
Reading Time: 2 minutes A local resident who walks every day through Taumanu Reserve, says its neglect is a “disgrace”. In November, Patrick Dyer contacted the Onehunga Community News to highlight the lack of maintenance and the general look of neglect. His main concern is about the proliferation of weeds throughout the area, the bottles and rubbish strewn around, ...
Reading Time: 2 minutes Waikaraka Park will be echoing to the sounds of the Highlands on February 28th. The Auckland Centre Pipe Bands’ Championship is being held at the park for the very first time, with bands from Rotorua to the Far North competing. The day will start mid-morning with street marches at the southern end of Captain Springs ...
Reading Time: < 1 minute If you’re between 60 and 74 years-old, and living in central Auckland, you can have a free bowel cancer test – all in the privacy of your own home. Invitations to participate in the programme, and get your home-testing kit, will begin to appear now in the letterboxes of those eligible (dependent on birth date) ...
Reading Time: < 1 minute The Onehunga Community News team: L-R Tim Plant, Janet Hannah, Sharleen Haimotu-Tavai, Amanda Peart, Rachel Sturges When I wrote last year’s Christmas message, little did I know what was in store for us in 2020 – nobody would have believed it. Yet here we are at the end of the year, in good spirits despite ...