Korero | About
During the COVID19 lockdowns, a network of youth organisations in the region began to regularly connect online. This led them to discover that the youth sector was looking for opportunities to collaborate and develop capability as well as receive well-being support.
From this realisation, Michael Moore from Creative Waikato facilitated several sessions with the youth sector in a bid to discover challenges and opportunities, and soon after, the collective received a grant from the Waikato Plan via Len Reynolds Trust. The collective began to ideate around nurturing connection, wellbeing and self-leadership within the sector, and the $10,000 turned into $52,000 with additional support from Hamilton City Council and Trust Waikato to run a retreat.
Seed Waikato then gathered a select group of young ethnic, queer, disabled, pacifica and Maaori leaders who each would represent youth organisations and their kaupapa across the region to build whanaungatanga and co-design the experience.
This group understood the importance of addressing disconnection, burnout, and the lack of access to meaningful educational pathways for the youth sector, and this was the fundamental reason why they chose to create a retreat - one that would nurture the well-being of the youth sector and put a focus on meaningful youth engagement.
This ground-breaking mahi mashes together community-led development, positive youth development and collective impact principles into practise, and is a powerful reference point for addressing inequities within the Waikato youth sector.
“I dream of creating a space for all of these stones & all of this knowledge so that people outside of the youth sector can learn and realise how important it is for our youth voices to be heard. Using my skills in writing and story-telling to give me opinions/thoughts/feelings a platform”
Feedback from rangatahi at Te Aka Matua retreat
Kaupapa | Our Mission
To create a pipeline of diverse, well and empowered leaders who contribute to and build rangatahi within their communities.
