The founder and visionary of InZone, Terrance Wallace, arrived in New Zealand from Chicago in 2010. Soon after arriving in New Zealand, Terrance travelled the country and was saddened to learn about the level of educational underachievement that existed among our Māori and Pacific Island rangatahi.

This prompted him to establish the InZone Project.  From the outset, the philosophy behind the InZone project was  to identify and partner with top academic performing state schools, building the necessary support and pastoral care for Māori and Pacific Island students to attend these schools and succeed academically, extra-curricularly and as leaders.  As a fledgling operation, the InZone Project initially operated under the umbrella of the United Māori Mission.

The InZone Project  saw the establishment of the InZone Boys Te kāinga Wānanga in 2011, at the United Māori Mission’s property in Lovelock Avenue.  Its pupils are given the opportunity to attend Auckland Grammar School, to fulfil their academic, leadership, sporting and cultural potential.

Stakeholders and the Crown  encouraged those involved in the InZone Project to consider the opportunities to work with the InZone Project model to expand the benefits to Māori and Pacific Island students in other areas.

Accordingly, the InZone Education Foundation  was formed to build on the initial success and experience of the InZone Project.  InZone Education Foundation  has charitable status and is now a separate entity from the United Māori Mission.

In 2015 our InZone girl’s  Te Kāinga Huarahi opened in a beautiful villa at 33 Owens Road, with the girls attending Epsom Girls Grammar .  The deadlines for opening were tight and thanks to an army of volunteers we were able to complete the work.  In 2017, the girls’ moved to Lovelock Avenue which has been a wonderful chance to provide more girls with the InZone opportunity.  This same building originally housed the first “InZone” boys.  The fact that it is now an InZone hostel again connects us back to our roots and has a nice synergy to it.