Memo 1st October 2019 To: Helen Taimarangai, Senior Grants Advisor From: Ōtara-Papatoetoe Local Board Subject: Excellence Awards panel decisions 1st October 2019 Purpose 1. To confirm the Excellence Awards Panel decisions made on 1st October 2019. Pursuit of Excellence Panel 2. The panel met today to discuss recent applications received for the Excellence awards. 3. Pursuant to local board resolution, the Excellence panel, OP/2018/144 under delegated authority from the local board, considered the applications and have decided to grant as follows: Applicant Conference/event Amount Amount approved applied for 1 Omar Dada – On Tournament of Minds International $2,000 $2,000 behalf of Papatoetoe Finals – Hobart, Tasmania High Schools – Tournament of Minds International Students. Further considerations 4. As discussed during the panel meeting, grantees are to be encouraged to share an update of their funded activities with the local board. It is the intention of the local board to also share these updates, where possible, with the community as part of their accountability process. Delegation to the panel 5. The panel was delegated decision making to make these grants in August 2018 in the following resolution of the Ōtara-Papatoetoe Local Board. 2019/2020 Otara-Papatoetoe Local Board Excellence Awards 012 Omar Dada Papatoetoe High School Tournament of Minds International Finals Physical address Papatoetoe, Auckland, NZ Legal status in NZ New Zealand citizenship Age Gender Male Ethnicity African Conflict of interest No Conference/event information Name of Tournament of the Minds – International competition – Hobart Tasmania, Australia conference: Location: Hobart Tasmania, Australia Dates: 24th October 2019 Purpose of Participation at the Tournament of Minds International Finals conference: Contribution to awards objectives Identified objective(s) Celebrate excellence of the local board area How would this build leadership and contribute to identified objective(s) All seven students live in the local area and are proud to. It meant so much to them to represent Auckland at the nationals in Wellington and to be able to show the country how amazing South Auckland schools can be. These students often encounter negative stereotypes about South Auckland, and they are very keen to keep proving those wrong. It's therefore an especially big deal that they have the chance to represent our local area and country at an academic event, where they will compete against teams from Australia, Hong Kong, Thailand, South Africa, India, Cambodia and Singapore. We have t-shirts with our school's name, which we had made for the nationals, and we will be wearing them throughout this event with pride. We are hoping to get some local media coverage as well, to further spread the good news of our students' achievements. The below section is going to be filled in about the students on the team, because this is about their achievements - the teachers in charge are just supporting them. Like our local community, our team is made up of students with a diverse variety of cultures, (and interests - several are involved in sports and one in student government) so we represent our school well in that respect. Please give a brief description of what the conference/event is about. This is a chance for seven students from Papatoetoe High School to represent our country at an international problem-solving competition. We are writing this on their behalf - they are Nazihah Buksh, Kate Dinh, Imran Hamid, Akram Khan, Leilani Kwan-Him, Lana Tang and Khushi Rathod. Last weekend, they placed second in the NZ Tournament of Minds (TOM) National Competition. The team that placed first is unable to attend the International Tournament, so we now have the honour of travelling to Hobart, Tasmania to compete in the Internationals against teams from across the Pacific. Our students will be representing New Zealand in the Social Sciences category. This is a huge achievement for our students, who are proud to live in our local area and are honoured to be representing not just Aotearoa but Ōtara- Papatoetoe! Tournament of Minds is a problem-solving programme for multi-aged teams of students who work together to solve a demanding, open-ended challenge and present their solution to a panel of judges. The purpose of Tournament of Minds is to enhance the potential of our youth by developing diverse skills, enterprise, time management, and the discipline to work collaboratively within a challenging and competitive environment. Applicant achievements Activity/achievement How this shows leadership skills or community Date contribution Placing honours at the This is only the second year that our school has 21/09/19 TOM National taken part in this competition, so it was a real Tournament * achievement for our students to do so well. Many of the competitors had been to Nationals, which has a different challenge structure than Regionals, before, but we had not. We saw this as a real achievement for our neighbourhood as well as our school and team. Placing first at the We were very proud that the strongest Auckland 31/08/19 Auckland Regionals team in our age group was from South Auckland! Team member Imran The election ran concurrently to Nationals prep! Our 23/09/19 Hamid is elected team is busy, ambitious and capable student representative on the school's Board of Trustees Team member Leilani Again, these are hardworking students who excel in 24/10/19 Kwan-Him set to be multiple areas recognized with multiple netball awards (she doesn't know yet) Financial information Amount requested: 2,000 Costs that will be Travel cost of the students while in Australia – tournament fees, accommodation, covered: transport and meals. Funding history Application ID Project title Decision Round - Stage Allocation No funding history available for this applicant .