About - The Hāpai Foundation and Access Card
Charity or Business?
The Hāpai Foundation is a New Zealand registered charity. Our registered charity number is CC56454.
We established the Hāpai Access Card in order to make access easier for people in New Zealand with disabilities. Sales from each card issued are used to fund the business activities required to supply and promote the card, onboard businesses and provide staff training on the implementation of the Hāpai Access Card programme.
The majority of our funding comes from grant applications and donations. Our financial objective is that the organisation will be self-sufficient by 2025 with the long-term goal of surplus funds to be used by the Hāpai Foundation to fund other initiatives outside of the Hāpai Access Card programme.
You can view our annual returns on the Charities Services website here.
Why is there a need for the card?
According to the New Zealand 2013 Disability Survey, 24 percent of the population were identified as disabled, a total then of 1.1 million people. This means that a significant number face barriers to living their life. For some there is little impact, but for others it has a major impact on their life.
The Social Model of Disability says that it is society that makes people disabled through putting barriers in their way. A simple example is a business on the second floor that can only be accessed by stairs. This means for people with mobility issues and cannot use stairs there is a barrier to access the products or services of that business. The model goes on to say that it is society that can remove the barriers. In this example a lift would remove the barrier, although that is not always a practical solution.
Based on the Social Model of Disability there is a need for society to examine itself, identify barriers and remove them.
The thing is that while there are plenty of physical barriers, the largest barriers are often related to attitude and lack of understanding. A survey done by Be.Lab of disabled people showed that of the top four things they wanted #1 was to be treated with respect, while #4 was physical access.
There is a need for society to be educated about both the physical accessibility plus attitudinal values and what can be done to reduce or eliminate them.
This is the place that the Hāpai Access Card sits. At the most simplistic level the card is aimed at improving the experience of disabled customers when visiting an organisation.