Vector Group Charitable Trust (Envisioning Sustainable Communities Creatively) is a community organisation, with initiatives specifically aimed toward youth and community creatives, mentoring, personal development and belonging.

Our youth of Te Puke and Surrounding Districts have voiced disappointment regarding belonging and a sense of place. Youth in our area feel like they don’t belong, a result of minimal engagement from community, tourism, culture and business. This includes a lack of events, workshops, arts, dance, cultural initiatives, things to do, involvement in planning and brainstorming, and no youth voice. Our region is lacking digital capacity in many ways. Business don’t see the importance of having a website or social media interaction, no film media, no local magazine, no centralised
regional online directory, no youth voice in local newspapers.

Our region is archaic in its digital capacity. We don’t have fibre and most places don’t have VDSL. Vector Group Charitable Trust is a charity with vision for youth and community development, digital enablement, belonging, inclusion, tourism, business and collaboration, and the development of a sense of place. Our vision was birthed out of the above needs with our overarching purpose of "Envisioning Sustainable Communities Creatively". We strategically engage with youth in our community from Alternative Education, Home Schooled, High Schools and established a 23 strong committee that consisted of youth, business savvy individuals, and individuals with passion for youth development in our community. We have various ages in our steering group from youth to 86 years old, an array of ethnicity and religious backgrounds and wide network of skills and expertise and strategic partners.

What makes us different? We are strategic in our projects and meet various interconnected outcomes and a wide variety of needs when doing projects. We are underpinning iconic changes and strategic synthesis with integrating youth to elderly, business, non-profits, tourism, events, venue, development, and digital infrastructure.