Weekend team building for Youth Council

The first official meeting of the Taupo District Youth Council was held last week and the local youngsters are off on a team building exercise at the end of the month to agree on the key projects they will get involved with this year.



Also during this weekend session, they will be encouraged to bond as a group, learn about each other and themselves and select their Chairman and Deputy Chairman.



The Youth Council encourages youth participation in civic affairs and provides a voice and direction on youth issues. It also helps the young people of Taupo give back to the community and provides them an opportunity to be listened to and included in decision making.



New Youth Council members Dion Harris and Kasee Mitchell, both from Tauhara College said they were looking forward to making a difference on the Youth Council.

“I think that we as a Youth Council can help make Taupo fun for youth and make it a cool place,” said Dion.

“It is a positive thing to get youth input and for Taupo to be youth orientated,” said Kasee.



There are 21 members of the Youth Council between the ages of 12 and 19 years old with representatives from local schools and education facilities. The young people, who were selected to be a part of Youth Council by their schools, are a diverse group that will meet every month throughout the school year. Council’s Community Project Officer, Jenny Steadman organises and facilitates the Youth Council to encourage the group and steer them in the right direction. This year she will be assisted by members of local youth organisations - Amy Crawford from Café 4 Youth Health and TeWhetu Dewes from He Ara Tika Mentoring Programme.



Councillors Mich’eal Downard and Bernhard Chrustowski are the Council representatives on the Youth Council and are both keen to get the kids involved with as much as possible.



Councillor Downard, who has a young family of his own, was pleased to be nominated on the Youth Council.

“The Youth are our future and we need to support and encourage them to get involved with the direction of the community.”



Councillor Chrustowksi said that it has been a long time since he had been on a youth camp and even though he wasn’t sure if he was going to get any sleep, was really looking forward to it.

“It will be a good opportunity to get to know the kids better and for us to develop trust in each other.”



Last week was the first ever Regional Youth Council Hui in Rotorua and three members of the new Youth Council attended. Youth Minister Nanaia Mahuta spent time with young people from around the region answering their questions and discussing the hot topics in Parliament affecting youth currently. The new National Youth Council Network was launched which will help unite all Youth Councils from around the country.



Youth Council member Ella Hutchings from Taupo Nui-a-Tia attended the Hui and said “It was pretty good getting to know people from other Councils and getting ideas from the other Youth Councils and seeing who else is involved.”



Projects that the Youth Council were involved with last year included the Taupo District Youth Festival, the ‘Smokefree’ survey, a base for the Youth Drug and Alcohol Co-ordinator, the ‘Kids R Unbeatable’ campaign, library youth-friendly initiative, short films and working with a number of community groups and organisations who were wanting a youth perspective.



This year’s Youth Council is already thinking about what it can do for National Youth Week and also plan to assist Council staff with engaging the Community on the Long Term Council Community Plan, Council’s key planning document.