hightlights of 2011
Far North Future Leaders
In their final year the girls went sailing on the R. Tucker Thompson, stayed on camp with other Future Leaders at Waiwera, participated in the Annual Future Leaders Forum in Auckland, took part in workshops which were designed by their own mentors covering topics such as food on a budget, budgeting, health care, interview techniques and networking, they also attended a Roseann Gedye workshop on ‘Living the life you want’. At the graduation ceremony in November all of the Future Leaders recognised the huge opportunity that Future Leaders had given them and they were very grateful for it. These young women are still in contact with YWCA Whangarei. Four have gone on to tertiary study while the fifth is taking a gap year before applying for Police College.
Y’s Girl Programme
The programme was run at Mangakahia Area School, Kamo Intermediate School and Te Kura Kaupapa Maori O Te Rawhiti Roa with a total of forty six girls taking part. Y’s Girl is a seven week long fun, creative programme for 11-14 year old girls, which aims to build a community of wise girls that value themselves and have positive body image. The girls enjoyed the programme and these are some of the comments that came out in their evaluation of the programme. “Beauty is everywhere, all shapes and sizes.” “I’m not as shy as I used to be.” “I learned that you should always be yourself and not someone that you aren’t.” In 2012 the Y’s Girl Programme has been booked by Kamo Intermediate School, Whangarei Intermediate School, Manaia View School and Whangarei Girls High School.
During the year we consulted with twenty three young women from Mangakahia Area School, He Mataariki School and Okaihau College to gain information for the ‘YWCA Pacific Young Women’s Leadership Strategy’.
Nourish
In October we delivered the ‘Nourish’ workshop to nine young women at He Mataariki School for Teen Parents. This workshop aimed to create both a healthy body image and relationship with food.
Encore
Twelve women attended our ninth Encore Programme. This is a free programme and one that is strongly supported by many within the health profession. Women participate in both pool and floor exercises over eight weeks.
Youth Week
For Youth Week we decided to focus on anti-bullying. Jan worked with all year ten students at Mangakahia Area College on an anti bullying slogan and poster competition. The winning slogan is 'Bullying - Not Our Future'.
Paper Dolls Campaign: We supported the YWCA of Aotearoa NZ and Positive Women’s national “Paper Doll” campaign, also a global campaign, by holding a workshop to raise awareness and advocate for female condoms. Students and representatives from various community groups attended and wrote messages on paper dolls as a way of petitioning for female condoms. The paper dolls have been sent overseas where they will be joined together with others from around the world to make a long chain, representing the worldwide demand for female condoms.
