Supporting young people to engage with learning and life through relationships and experiences is part of Te Aroha Noa’s history.
Nearly three decades have been spent doing just that in the community of Highbury in Palmerston North, and Te Aroha Noa’s success has not gone unnoticed.
Te Aroha Noa’s Julene Duerksen-Kapao became a 2016 Vodafone New Zealand Foundation World of Difference recipient, and used her educational knowledge to enhance the multi-disciplinary team approach with rangatahi.
Through this experience, the team saw young people making positive changes in their lives, but the whānau narrative remained unchanged.
This year Te Aroha Noa Youth Programmes co-ordinator Brad Rapira has a shared vision with his team, where whole communities pull together to provide a future for young people that isn’t limited by the circumstances and story.
Te Aroha Noa has spent the past five years working with more than 30 young people to re-engage them in learning pathways.
“They’ve moved on to areas that have blown us away. They’ve been able to step into some daunting institutions like UCOL, the local polytechnic, and handle it, with hope,” Brad said.
It’s that work that saw Te Aroha Noa recently named as Vodafone New Zealand Extension partnership grant recipients. The group will receive $300,000 over three years and on-going partnership support.
For Brad, the partnership is a game changer – enabling Te Aroha Noa to reach out to the wider whānau for lasting change.
“We’ve given these young people a vision and a dream, but then they go home to some of their normal environments, where there might be that uncertainty, that chaos,” Brad said.
He believes learning is hard, without social and emotional wellness first.
“I can go home to my four kids and there’s food in the cupboard. That’s not the case for some young people. One opened up a pretty ordinary fridge and went oh my god it’s like a shopping mall, wow.
“We’ve always wanted to say to the families, we need you to be part of this difference, tell us your hopes and dreams for your children, let us through you, and partnering with the Vodafone Foundation, assist and guide those dreams.,” Brad added.
Vodafone New Zealand Foundation chair, Antony Welton said Te Aroha Noa’s work is vital.
“We are proud to support this programme. We’re really excited to see what the future looks like through engaging the young people, their whānau, and the wider community. We believe this will lead to sustainable change and transformation,” Antony said.
For Brad, it’s about building a future where each family supported, will reach out to another.
“We’d go around and pick up these rangatahi, and we might see young siblings, school age, at home day after day, and we were questioning you know why aren’t they in school, and that’s all good in the ideal world, when things are going well, but that wasn’t happening.
“If we give those families a narrative of hope and belief that has a long term effect on all the rangatahi, on cousins that stay with them – it’s kind of like a viral thing. You lay down that hope virus and just let it take hold,” Brad added.
