No Kandoo - Graeme Dingle Foundation Marlborough to close

After 14 years of operations and over 10 million local student learning hours, a national restructure has seen Marlborough’s arm of the Graeme Dingle Foundation fold.

All roles at the Graeme Dingle Foundation Marlborough have been disestablished as the national organisation moves to centralise the delivery of its educational programmes in schools.

The Future of Work Conference 2025 will go on as planned, while Stars and Career Navigator programmes will pause as of May 19, 2025 and Kiwi Can will continue until the end of Term 2.

Hopes are that the Graeme Dingle Foundation’s programmes continue to operate in Marlborough under the new centralised system, but outgoing Regional Manager Kelvin Watt says the 14 years of local effort have left a distinct mark on Marlborough's youth.

“I hope our legacy will be a generation of thriving young people and a stronger community ... we’re humbled when we look back at the amazing achievements of the past 14 years of operation locally,” says Kelvin.

“Without the license agreement from national office, which wouldn’t apply if the process to centralise goes ahead, it’s just not possible for us to continue as we do now.”

Principal of Mayfield School and longtime supporter David Nott was “pretty upset and disappointed it has come to this”.

“The Graeme Dingle Foundation’s values tied in beautifully with what we were trying to implement in our school, and they've just supported us beautifully all the way through with some amazing leaders through the place.

“It’s been a long and happy relationship – one of the very first Kiwi Can leaders is teaching here, and we were one of the first schools to move to fortnightly lessons just to make it work recently – and we’ve loved having your people and presence in our school.”

Ted Culley was an instrumental figure in getting Kiwi Can set up in Marlborough 14 years ago and says he knows local kids will lose out due to national issues.

“I’ve fundraised over $60,000, and I know how hard it is to raise the money from our community to support such comprehensive efforts, so I hope the head office sees how much students and the wider community supports the Foundation’s efforts here, because the kids need it.

“The team in Marlborough have done an awesome job engaging with the local community, and given they’d put themselves on a firm financial stance, it’s a real travesty the loss of local efforts is a cause of the national level struggles.

“It took a whole lot of effort and willpower to get started, and when you see what the Foundation’s efforts does for kids you become a believer, but I think they’ll struggle to bring the same levels of enthusiasm to Marlborough students from a centralised position”.