Annah Stretton
Annah is one of New Zealand’s leading fashion business entrepreneurs, an author of four books and a creative presence in the New Zealand/global fashion world.
She was one of five finalists in the 2005 Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Awards and has an Order of Merit for services to fashion, business and philanthropy.
Annah’s massive philanthropic endeavours also provide for substantial support to a very wide range of charitable and community groups and organisations across New Zealand. She is the current chair of the Waikato women's refuge and sits on the board of UNICEF NZ.
Annah set up her own Stretton Foundation, to enable her to advance the social entrepreneurial work that she has become so passionate about. In 2013, RAW (Reclaim Another Woman) was the first initiative from this foundation.
RAW is now in the second stage of their pilot, working with highly recidivist female criminals in the New Zealand women's prisons. Women, on exiting prison, are relocated to incubator homes in the Waikato where they negotiate a journey of education that provides massive change and choice for this previously disadvantaged and destructive demographic. RAW is breaking the cycle of huge fiscal and social cost for the socially disadvantaged in the country - to date they have a 90% success rate.
In 2016, RAW's work also extended to address recidivism in the men's prisons, and they now have a functional pilot of three men in an incubator home in the Waikato.