Monday, July 23, 2007
It’s good to see so many of you here today, representing our secondary schools in Hutt City. Welcome to our Principals, school staff, and student leaders. I look forward to spending some time informally with you today.
We also have with us some of our Hutt City Council staff who are responsible for working with our young people: Sally Hallmark Senior Adviser Strategic Development, Epirosa Robertson our Youth Development Officer, and Wiki Samuel and Darren Haehae from our Ministry of Youth Development funded youth worker programme, Te Ara Kete.
After lunch they are going to take you through our draft Hutt City Council Youth Development Strategy. The draft Strategy outlines the intent of Hutt City Council’s commitment to our young people over the next five years, and is about supporting young people to meet their potential, and to become successful and responsible adults. The draft Strategy acknowledges that young people are an integral and growing part of each of our distinct communities, and that they have an important part to play in our City now and in the future.
The draft Strategy already includes ideas from some of our young people. In taking you through the draft Strategy, our Council staff are asking you to then consult with the students in your school, through whatever mechanisms you have in place – school council, year level councils – and feed back their views to us. In this way, we will have a Strategy that reflects the voices and needs of our young people.
I hope to meet with you all again, towards the end of this term, to hear the feedback from you and your schools on the draft Strategy. Together we will help young people in our city to take up challenges, pursue their dreams, and to feel supported in doing so.