Annual Howick Youth Summit

On Monday 21 May, 10 Macleans College students attended the Annual Howick Youth Summit at Te Tuhi, organised by youth and for youth by the Howick Youth Council.

The ultimate goal of the summit was to engage youth in coming up with innovative solutions for local issues, and form these into recommendations with potential to create a real difference for youth in the community. Along with 60 other students from local schools, 54 recommendations were created relating to a range of areas including environment, wellbeing and transport.

Guest speakers addressed the students to help inspire them. One speaker recounted her story of having to escape from conflict in her home country as a child and settling as a refugee in New Zealand.

Next the participants broke into small groups and wrote recommendations relating to their focus group. Some of the recommendations created included:

• A school bus system that meets the needs of students
• An accreditation system for local businesses to demonstrate their commitment and efforts towards environmentally sustainable operations
• Yearly mental health check-ups with counsellors.

A rigorous debate was then held, with participants passionately making the case for or against the proposed solutions. After unanimously passing the final declaration these recommendations along with many more were presented to the Howick Local Board at the closing ceremony. All of the students who attended learnt how to make a real difference to the community, as well as developing confidence, team work and debating skills.

Five Macleans students Henry Lockhart (Kupe House), Shuyi Wang (Snell), Joyce Chan (Kupe), Sophie Sun (Kupe) and Yang-Fan Yun (Snell) are members of the Howick Youth Council, and were facilitators/organisers of the event and were essential for making the summit a success.

The Howick Youth Council is a group of young people from the wider Howick area who work on creating fun and valuable projects to better youth in the community, as well as advocating for youth on to the Howick Local Board.

Applications for Open seats on the Howick Youth Council are open during October/November, and applications for the 2019 Year 12 representative from Macleans College will be open during the summer holidays.

Photos provided by Aim to Capture Photography