Koha Kai is focused on creating social transformation within the disability sector through meaningful employment and education leading to nationally recognised qualifications.
Seeking a pathway for people who had been isolated by the fact they live with the challenges of disability, Koha Kai was designed in August 2013 as a bridge towards community integration. Koha Kai brings new and innovative employment opportunities for people with disabilities, where they learn skills while supporting their community. Through their Lunches in Schools Programme, Koha Kai partners with primary schools who give the use of their kitchens for Koha Kai trainees to cook in, in exchange for a healthy lunch option sold to students at an affordable price. Koha Kai has also expanded its operations to include growing their own produce, and selling meals to the wider community.
Koha Kai started with a core group of eight to ten people with disabilities, and the founder Janice Lee. In 2015, Koha Kai was registered as a not for profit charitable trust. By utilising a social enterprise model, they designed their organisation to incorporate vocational education programmes, community service provision and sustainable development.
Serving schools' Christmas lunch
What problem are they trying to solve?
Koha Kai’s primary focus is on providing people with disabilities the opportunity to learn transferable skills, allowing them to take future meaningful employment opportunities and compete with parity against people without disabilities. This gives workers purpose, life skills and social skills that enable them to live truly valued and integrated and independent lives as fully contributing members of our community. That way, Koha Kai contributes to improve the health and well-being of people with disabilities.
Another social issue that Koha Kai is addresses in its business model is child poverty and child hunger, pertinent to Invercargill as poverty levels became critical after rising living costs hit the Southland city harder than usual late last year. The charitable side of Koha Kai means that people can donate funds to support their Lunches in Schools Programme, and those funds are used to ensure the children most in need can access lunch for free during school time.
The community services Koha Kai provides also address the issues of isolation of the elderly and social inequality within the community.
What impact is Koha Kai making?
As mentioned above, Koha Kai is making a positive difference for a diverse group of beneficiaries: people with disabilities, children, and the wider community.
Impact for people with disabilities:
Koha Kai has established contextual teaching programmes, which are supplied through service to the community (Lunches in School Programme and Horticulture Programme), and support people with disabilities towards developing specific skills, such as time management, teamwork and fine motor skills.
Everybody in Koha Kai begins this journey as a Volunteer, and they later have the option to enroll in the programme as a Trainee, where their work becomes more structured (12 hours, 3 days per week). The skills Trainees learn through their Koha Kai experience are leading to achievement in NZQA unit standards and other qualifications which allows them to compete with parity against non-disabled people for employment opportunities. As they gain experience, they also have the opportunity to become employees of Koha Kai.
Both Volunteers and Trainees are working towards learning transferable skills which will support them to live more independently in the communities to which they belong, a positive living outcome which Koha Kai strives towards. Reduction of reliance on social and medical support by the people who have been through the programme is measured, as has the increase in employment opportunities by the volunteers who have progressed through the organisation.
In addition to this, around 30% of the food cooked is given to Koha Kai’s Disabled Trainees and Community Volunteers as a Koha for the work they do in growing (Horticulture Vocational programme) and cooking the meals for the Lunches in Schools Programme (Hospitality Vocational Programme).
Koha Kai currently has an operational team of 6.75 FTE's, who also contribute at least 30 volunteer hours per week. They also have 37 volunteers, 32 of whom are progressing through their vocational training programmes and contributing more than 400 volunteer hours per week to the community.
Impact for children:
Koha Kai’s Lunches in Schools programme is included in four schools as of May 2018, with two more schools waiting to be added within the next three months. They have a catchment of more than 750 children and staff through the schools currently subscribed to their programme. Lunches are sold for $2, less than it would cost to prepare a meal at home. This is compared to the approximate $4.78 per day the contents of the lunches would cost elsewhere. This ensures the children most in need can access meals regardless of their social or financial circumstances. The processes followed in the distribution of meals have given them the opportunity to address issues of confidence that often sit with such children. Their meals are ordered the same way, delivered the same way, and they get to eat the same food as their classmates. This eliminates the stigma of poverty and strengthens both their functionality in the classroom and their interpersonal relationships with their peers.
Impact for the community and environment:
Koha Kai’s food production programme uses organic principles with a very low carbon footprint. Currently, they support three community gardens, three school gardens, and up to five private gardens in the community. They have also recently diversified into garden maintenance, and are aiding the growth of microenterprise businesses to support their trainees towards financial independence.
Community Meal
What is Koha Kai’s business model?
Income for Koha Kai is generated through the sale of lunches to children through the Lunches in Schools Programme. They charge $2 per meal, though the actual cost of the meals sits closer to $2.80. Koha Kai makes up the shortfall in the cost of the children’s lunches, by plating and freezing surplus food to create ‘Community Meals’, which they sell to the public through a Social Enterprise partner called “The Pantry”, in Invercargill. For every adult or community meal the Pantry sells, Koha Kai earns part of the profits. Thanks to the income generated from the sale of their Community Meals, the Lunches in Schools programme is sitting slightly above break even.
Koha Kai also generates income via their Horticulture programme which is still in development. The revenue comes mainly from the sale of vegetables to school and community kitchens, as well the sale of seedlings and produce to the community.
Further income is about to be derived from the enrolment of Koha Kai’s trainees into the NZ Certification programme which is funded through contracts with SIT (Southern Institute of Technology). This income will support the operational costs associated with Koha Kai’s programmes. Further income is likely to be from Crown Contracts for social and disability services.
In the interim, Koha Kai’s operational costs are covered through the generosity of local funders and community donations for the past 12 months, and they have received sufficient funding to support these operational costs for up to two years.
Where to from here?
Koha Kai is continuing to develop different income streams to support the business model towards sustainability, and they are now in the process of developing a new market garden through one of their community partnerships. Koha Kai’s vision is to replicate their business model New Zealand wide.
Koha in its truest form does not just mean ‘gift’. Koha is an exchange of energy, where something is given and received with the understanding that both will benefit from the exchange. Koha Kai breaks down the barriers of disability, by working within the community in a way that is valued by the community.