Funds
Hughes Education Fund
Every child deserves the opportunity to learn, grow and reach their full potential. Yet for children who experience learning differences, the journey through education can sometimes be marked by challenges, uncertainty and barriers to accessing the support they need.
Focusing on the Fiordland Region the Hughes Education Fund has been established to help change that. The fund aims to support early identification and access to appropriate educational support, to ensure that children are recognised, understood and given the opportunity to thrive from the earliest possible stage.
Supporting Education in Fiordland
The Hughes Education Fund seeks to provide practical, needs-based assistance within the Fiordland region, helping ensure that children can be identified, understood and supported in ways that enable them to engage, participate and thrive in education.
For children who experience learning differences, accessing the right support at the right time can make a profound difference. Yet within the Fiordland region, families can face additional challenges due to limited access to qualified specialists and local educational support services. Distance, travel requirements and the associated financial and logistical costs can create further barriers to timely assessment and appropriate support.
Aims of the Hughes Education Fund
The Fund aims to help reduce barriers, so that where additional support is needed, a child’s circumstances or location does not stand in the way of their opportunity to learn and succeed. By helping connect children and families with the right expertise and resources, the Fund hopes to foster greater confidence and opportunity, enabling every child to reach their potential and thrive in their education. The fund will be particularly focused on primary aged children.
The fund will aim to support:
Contributions towards the cost of professional assessments and specialist educational evaluations.
Travel costs to access assessments or specialist services
Bringing qualified specialist educators into the region where local access is not available.
Programmes or initiatives that extend or complement the support available to children within the educations system.
How the Fund will work
Grants from The Hughes Education Fund will be made through contestable applications during the Southland Foundation annual grants round and will be assessed against the purpose of the fund.
Stories and resources
August 13 2026
Supporting education in Fiordland
Every child in Fiordland deserves the chance to reach the potential, and early intervention has the greatest long term impact. This is the aim of the Hughes Education Fund.