A boy plays with seeds during therapy at the therapy and development centre for autistic kids in the Asociacion Guatemalteca por el Autismo, or Guatemalan Association for Autism, building in Guatemala City March 13, 2014. Nine children, from 6-14 years ol
IN PHOTO: A boy plays with seeds during therapy at the therapy and development centre for autistic kids in the Asociacion Guatemalteca por el Autismo, or Guatemalan Association for Autism, building in Guatemala City March 13, 2014. Nine children, from 6-14 years old, with autism are enrolled at the centre which provides activities and therapies catered to them. The centre is the only one in the country that specifically conducts programs for autistic children, according to the association. Reuters

New Zealand child poverty will be tackled on a war footing with an exclusive package in the upcoming budget of 2015 May, having a focus on 100,000 deprived children. This was announced by Prime Minister John Key on Tuesday with some insights into the proposed hardship support plan. The prime minister said his cabinet ministers are working on a new package that will be released in the May budget to alleviate hardship of poverty-stricken children. In the new package, the focus will be deprived children, who are estimated to number 110,000. "This is a subset that most New Zealanders say absolutely and materially poor," the PM told reporters.

Survey Report

The prime minister's response also factored in the findings of Child Poverty Monitor, which reported that 260,000 children in New Zealand are be growing up in income poverty, though the numbers have dropped from 285,000, the year before. Children's Commissioner Russell Wills and the Child Poverty Action Group called for more concerted action to improve the situation. Both the Labour and Green Party urged the government to take action by raising incomes and making housing and healthcare more affordable to ease the burden on cash-strapped families, reported Yahoo News NZ.

Four Cost Areas

The PM said officials will be devising a range of initiatives to improve the lot of these kids. The initiatives will address four most cost intensive areas - housing, transportation, childcare costs and debt to loan sharks. Despite New Zealand's child poverty rates having declined slightly, sections like Maori and Pacific children are still suffering disproportionately, according to the Child Poverty Monitor, reports Stuff.Co. Nz. In the second annual Child Poverty Monitor, there is only a slight decrease in the number of Kiwi children living in income poverty.

It marked a marginal drop from 27 percent to 24 percent. However, much needs to be done in terms of health impacts, the researchers said. The death rates from medical conditions related to socio-economic status showed Maori children are impacted three times and pacific kids four times compared to European children.

The proportion of New Zealand children, who are sick with preventable diseases linked to poverty are at a high, according to paediatric expert Innes Asher of the Steering Group of the NZ Child and Youth Epidemiology Service. Yet, another expert, Dr Jean Simpson, also observed that one in four New Zealand children aged up to 17 are facing poverty. Simpson is serving as the director of Otago-based NZ Child and Youth Epidemiology Service.