The Archdiocese of Wellington Archives should have records. The Sisters of Our Lady of the Missions should have records from before the 1970's https://rndm.org.nz/contact/. You have the right to know why, if they do not. The Alexander Turnbull Library has registeres of children. Link to their catalogue Tiaki: https://tiaki.natlib.govt.nz/#details=ecatalogue.180722
Gender and age: Mixed 5-13 years, but predominantly boys
Capacity:
Controlling organisations:
Third-party provider to State, faith-based
Registered 14/3/1943
Other information: Sunnybank operated almost self-sufficiently on 18 hectares of agricultural land from the 1940s until the late 1980s.
As a Nelson Photo News story of September 1963 described it, five Sisters of the Mission and a priest tended to the material, educational and spiritual needs of up to 50 boys aged between 5 and 15, not to mention 13 milking cows and a flock of sheep.
It operated independently with residential priests and nuns - and minimal outside supervision.
For its last dozen or so years as Garindale, the institution became a collection of two or three large family home-type arrangements working under the same roof and overseen out of Wellington by the national Catholic Social Services.
Known as Sunnybank 1941-1975 and known as Garindale from 1975-1988.
Since 2019, the property is now the Nelson headquarters of Youth With a Mission (YWAM), a global interdenominational Christian organisation who operate youth programmes.
Journal article including survivor accounts 'Sunnybank - the forgotten Boys' Home' by Poppy Postance - Nelson Historical Society journal, 2016; v.8 n.2:p.60-71; issn: https://natlib.govt.nz/records/38335057
Stuff article (24 May 2014) with Hinemoana Baker sharing the experiences of her father, Val Baker, from his time at Sunnybank: https://www.stuff.co.nz/nelson-mail/editors-picks/10080478/Hard-times-and-healing
'Directory of residential facilities for disturbed children in New Zealand', Department of Social Welfare, 1979. https://natlib.govt.nz/records/40422924
31 September 2020 Affidavit of Anita Ngaire Easton for Oranga Tamariki - Ministry for Children to the Abuse in Care Inquiry
Information provided by Te Rōpū Tautoko (Catholic Church) to the Crown Response Unit on 24 May 2024
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