“The most important thing kids need to help them survive in this world
is someone who’s crazy about them” - Urie Bronfenbrenner, ‘The
Ecology of Human Development’Cambridge, MA Harvard University Press
- as quoted by Hillary Rodham Clinton in ‘It Takes a Village’ 1996
Young Life is crazy about the young people in our community. We believe they deserve every chance to reach their full potential as confident, resilient, community-minded adults.
Young people have a difficult road to travel from adolescence to adulthood. There are a multitude of risk factors threatening to derail our young people, such as the erosion of the family unit, alcohol and drug abuse, a horrifying suicide rate and a youth culture that has become largely isolated from much of the adult world.
The Young Life New Zealand Trust is committed to implementing strategies that help young people overcome these risk factors so that they can reach their full potential.
Long term Presence not short term programmes
Young Life is focused on Presence Based Youth Work. We believe that the best intervention in a young person’s life isn’t another programme, or short term project, but the presence of a caring adult who will take the time to build a lasting relationship with a young person and walk with them throughout their teenage years and beyond. They provide mentoring, life coaching, a place to belong, a person to confide in and a trusted connection to the adult world.
Our key strategies to achieve our purposes are:
1.Providing Presence Based Youth Workers to serve in secondary schools and in the greater community.
2.Creating Youth Communities for students to belong to where they can have fun, meet new friends and be encouraged to make positive choices.
3.Offering Presence based Youth Work training and mentoring opportunities for students, youth workers and youth work organisations.
Young Life New Zealand has been providing quality youth work and youth worker training to the East Auckland community for over 10 years.
