Okay so I rested up and reflected last month and this month has just been jam packed. With the next Passion holiday program having just finished it’s full on again for both me and the youth committee. I must say this by far has been the best holiday program this year and big ups to the youth committee for all their hard work especially Junior Salu and Ebony Kelly who have been leaders learning and growing in our program and for the first time we handed full reign over them. We not only employed them to run the program for the two weeks but they took full control of everything.
We had always run the program in OTARA but it appeared there was a lot going on during the school holidays for youth in OTARA and youth living in Clover Park (where our office is based) had nothing available to them so the youth committee decided to target that area and it was a great success. Not only did we have the highest numbers this year but we also had more involvement from parents and excellent feedback.
The youth committee also thought outside the square and instead of having our tradition performance indoors they decided to put it on outdoors and also incorporate a family fun day with a theme of “Being Passionate about the place you live”. It was excellent to see the youth but even more so Junior and Ebony take on the challenge of running everything and a lot was learned but the opportunity greatly embraced. As a result we now have more young people passionate about having one more program before Christmas which they will be working on proposing to our Board of Trustees.
It also came at a good time just before exams. It motivated a lot of the youth to work hard for their exams coming up due to the many new positive relationships they built during the program. So this month has really been focused on supporting our youth to run the program, deliver it then take out assess it once again see what didn’t work what did and implement the necessary changes or improvements that need to be done for the next program. With the year fast coming to end I’m looking forward to seeing what’s going to happen in the last two months. Keep posted!