Jackie Clark QSM (born 1964) is a New Zealand philanthropist and advocate for women. [1] She established The Aunties, a charity helping vulnerable women and children who have experienced domestic violence. [2]
Jackie Clark QSM (born 1964) is a New Zealand philanthropist and advocate for women. [1] She established The Aunties, a charity helping vulnerable women and children who have experienced domestic violence. [2]
Clark was born in Grey Lynn's Bethany Hospital, owned by her great-grandmother, and raised in Takapuna. She was one of ten children; her mother Patricia (née France) was her father Tom's third wife. [3]
When Clark was 12 years old she left home for boarding school at her own request; she attended Samuel Marsden Collegiate School in Wellington. [1] She spent her last year of high school at Rangitoto College and then studied art and Southeast Asian history at University of Auckland. After graduating in 1986 she went overseas and lived in England, France and Switzerland before returning to New Zealand. [4]
Back in New Zealand, Clark studied for a teaching qualification and became a kindergarten teacher. Her first jobs were in low-income neighbourhoods -Otara and Owiraka - where she witnessed issues of poverty, crime, violence, drugs and alcohol and generational trauma first-hand. [1]
While working at a kindergarten in Mangere, Clark began to donate lost property from the kindergarten to the local women's refuge. She visited the refuge's safe houses and met women living there, and began to help with more specific needs. She created lists of items needed by the women and their children, shared these on social media, collected items and delivered them to the houses. Clark gathered other women to help her and the group became known as The Aunties in 2013. She later resigned her job, sold her house and moved to Manurewa, south Auckland, so she could run the charity full-time. [1] [5]
In 2018 Clark was awarded a Queen's Service Medal for services to women. [6] The same year, she won two awards at the New Zealand Women of Influence Awards: Supreme Award and Community and Not-for-Profit. [7]
In 2021, Clark launched a book of stories by survivors of domestic violence, told in their own voices, Her Say. [4]
Clark met her husband Ian in 1991 and they married shortly after. He was diagnosed with leukemia in 1996 and died on 31 December 2018 of liver failure. [4] [5]
Clark's great-great-grandfather was Rice Owen Clark, and her father was Sir Tom Clark, founders of the Crown Lynn ceramics business. [1] Clark has spoken about the family legacy of industrial success, in particular the family's relationship with the local Māori. In an interview in 2021 she said: "The reality is my family came here in 1843 and my great-great-grandfather built this great relationship with Te Kawerau ā Maki and bought all of Hobsonville ... and my family prospered and Te Kawerau ā Maki didn't. I owe them a debt. I owe these women a debt." [4]
New Lynn is a residential suburb in West Auckland, New Zealand, located 10 kilometres to the southwest of the Auckland city centre. The suburb is located along the Whau River, one of the narrowest points of the North Island, and was the location of Te Tōanga Waka, a traditional waka portage between the Waitematā and Manukau harbours.
The Waitākere Ranges is a mountain range in New Zealand. Located in West Auckland between metropolitan Auckland and the Tasman Sea, the ranges and its foothills and coasts comprise some 27,720 hectares of public and private land. The area, traditionally known to Māori as Te Wao Nui o Tiriwa, is of local, regional, and national significance. The Waitākere Ranges includes a chain of hills in the Auckland Region, generally running approximately 25 kilometres (16 mi) from north to south, 25 km west of central Auckland. The ranges are part of the Waitākere Ranges Regional Park.
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Te Kawerau ā Maki, Te Kawerau a Maki, or Te Kawerau-a-Maki is a Māori iwi (tribe) of the Auckland Region of New Zealand. Predominantly based in West Auckland, it had 251 registered adult members as of June 2017. The iwi holds land for a new marae and papakāinga at Te Henga that was returned in 2018; and land for a secondary marae at Te Onekiritea that was returned in 2015. it has no wharenui yet.
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Waitākere, often called Waitākere Township, is a small, mostly rural settlement to the northwest of Auckland, New Zealand.
Ruahine "Roni" Albert is New Zealand anti-domestic violence activist of Ngāti Maniapoto, Ngāti Tūwharetoa and Tainui descent.
Te Uru Waitākere Contemporary Gallery is a contemporary art gallery located in Titirangi, Auckland. The gallery, which serves the West Auckland region, was originally opened within Lopdell House in 1986.
The Aunties is a South-Auckland, New Zealand-based charity helping vulnerable women and children who have experienced domestic violence. Founded in 2013 by Jackie Clark, the group aims to provide material help and pastoral care in the spirit of manaakitanga.
Dame Rosemary Anne Horton was a New Zealand philanthropist. For more than 40 years she raised money for New Zealand organisations, many of which focus on sick children and women.
West Auckland is one of the major geographical areas of Auckland, the largest city in New Zealand. Much of the area is dominated by the Waitākere Ranges, the eastern slopes of the Miocene era Waitākere volcano which was upraised from the ocean floor, and now one of the largest regional parks in New Zealand. The metropolitan area of West Auckland developed between the Waitākere Ranges to the west and the upper reaches of the Waitematā Harbour to the east. It covers areas such as Glen Eden, Henderson, Massey and New Lynn.
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