Youth Archive

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  Talking Child Poverty in Whangarei - by Holly Walker

  
  
  
  Yesterday I went on my first official trip as an MP, to Whangarei. My colleagues tell me the novelty of the travel will wear off, but I don’t think the buzz from connecting directly with people doing amazing and inspiring work on the issues I care about is going to wear off any time soon. [...] read more
  January 24, 2012 5:57 pm - 37 Comments
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  Blueprint for safer queer youth - by Kevin Hague

  
  
  
  Last week I had the chance to participate in several of the events in the Hamilton Pride Festival for queer and transgendered people in the Waikato. I spent my secondary school years at Hamilton Boys High School, so I really valued the opportunity to launch there a landmark new report by Murray Riches entitled “How [...] read more
  September 29, 2011 8:13 am - 1 Comment
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  Youth! Y U NO ENROL? - by Gareth Hughes

  
  
  
  It is important young Kiwis are involved in the political process. They are the future and have a stake in our democracy. However, at the moment almost a third of 18–24-year-olds and a fifth of 25–29-year-olds are not enrolled to vote in the upcoming election! If you aren’t enrolled you can’t vote and have a [...] read more
  September 16, 2011 9:42 am - 59 Comments
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  Welfare changes: private profit and political posturing - by Catherine Delahunty

  
  
  
  Did I miss something? Did the Prime Minister say he was going to work with the business and community sectors to create jobs at a living wage for the 27 percent of young people with no jobs? No. But he did promise to privitise the management of youth benefits for profit via a food stamps system. read more
  August 15, 2011 2:05 pm - 24 Comments
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  Pink Shirt Day on April 14th - by Kevin Hague

  
  
  
  You know you have one. Time to get it out. Russel Norman says I have to iron mine. April 14th is Pink Shirt Day, a day when everyone around the country is encouraged to make a visual display of our abhorrence of bullying. read more
  April 7, 2011 11:29 am - 5 Comments
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  It’s a war on youth - by Gareth Hughes

  
  
  
  It hasn’t been a good year for under-twenty year olds. Hopefully if you’re young, you’re out having fun and don’t really give a toss what those old fogies in Government are up to. But if you’ve followed some of the changes this year, you could be mistaken into thinking that someone’s declared a war on [...] read more
  October 5, 2010 11:32 am - 44 Comments
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  Young people inspire others to believe change is possible - by Kevin Hague

  
  
  
  One of the events I really wanted to take part in last year was a festival called “A Day at the Beach”. It was the idea of a couple of young West Coasters, Louis Brown and Guy Ryan. Louis would walk 350km (to represent 350 ppm Carbon in the atmosphere) down the beach from Karamea [...] read more
  September 5, 2010 11:00 pm - 5 Comments
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  Youth Health services at risk - by Kevin Hague

  
  
  
  Yesterday the Health Select Committee heard a briefing from the Ministry of Health in response to the petition of Jacinda Ardern and others seeking to safeguard youth one stop shops. These Youth One Stop Shops have mostly grown up in the health sector from the ground up, where needs have been expressed from young people [...] read more
  August 19, 2010 10:41 am - 10 Comments
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  Podcast: Gareth’s challenge to Parliament - by frog

  
  
  
  The Greens’ newest and youngest MP, Gareth Hughes, has taken his seat in Parliament and delivered his maiden speech, laying down a challenge to Parliament to take climate change seriously and to listen to the voices of the new generation he represents. This week we present some highlights from his maiden address. Click to play [...] read more
  March 3, 2010 9:33 am - 3 Comments
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  Identity Theft – Climate change threatens Pacific Cultures - by frog

  
  
  
  An island leader’s eloquent plea for action to save his Pacific homeland from the ravages of climate change convinced audience members of the need for regional leadership on greenhouse gas emissions, and inspired a work of art. Reverend Tafue Lusama of Tuvalu spoke about the immediacy of climate change in two sessions at Auckland’s Samoa [...] read more
  August 12, 2009 4:39 pm - 35 Comments
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  Youth fundraising efforts just gets more drugs into homes - by Metiria Turei

  
  
  
  I have received a disturbing letter from Liz Read, Corporate Affairs Direcctor of Lion Nathan New Zealand and Graham Dingle, co-founder of the Foundation for Youth Development. They have jointly launched a major fundraising initiative to support the Foundation’s programmes. They say: The Non-Event of the Year, as it has been billed, asks New Zealanders [...] read more
  March 25, 2009 4:01 pm - 44 Comments
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  Dub, hip hop or techno? - by frog

  
  
  
  A bit more on music.  The Herald yesterday asked political party leaders ‘Dub, hip hop or techno?’ Ok, it’s a silly question and hardly what you’d expect from a paper taking its fourth estate role seriously. But it did highlight something of the fact that our politicians place so little value on youth culture.  Jeanette [...] read more
  October 6, 2008 3:30 pm - 8 Comments
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  Metiria on youth wages and a universal student allowance - by frog

  
  
  
  Here’s some more from the launch of the Greens’ youth campaign: read more
  August 15, 2008 7:50 am - 33 Comments
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  Children’s rights - by frog

  
  
  
  There’s an interesting debate taking place on this earlier post about whether a teacher should have given the children she was supervising the option to participate in a protest on the lawn of parliament. This I think, highlights a common children’s advocacy issue – should we protect children and preserve their ‘innocence’, or should we [...] read more
  August 8, 2008 7:59 am - 73 Comments
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  Metiria gets personal - by frog

  
  
  
  Metiria launched the Greens’ youth policy last weekend with a fair amount of frankness: When I did it for the first time, I confess it wasn’t for love, it was for fun. My boyfriend and I had stayed out the whole night before and the next morning, still awake and restless we just thought, “Yeah, [...] read more
  August 5, 2008 10:46 am - 29 Comments
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  Outrageous; teenage mothers stay home to care for children - by frog

  
  
  
  National’s Judith Collins used the weekend to talk about this year’s favourite electorally marginal group of people; young people.  Specifically this week we as country are moving on from taggers (who I note have made their thoughts clear on government’s latest anti-tagger policy down in Timaru) and switching focus to that regular talkback show stalwart, [...] read more
  February 25, 2008 11:26 am - 27 Comments
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  Russel’s response to John Key - by frog

  
  
  
  It’s interesting that John Key’s ‘Youth Guarantee’ scheme talks about providing free tertiary education for 16-17 year old students who leave school but nothing for those students who stay at school and then try to follow their dream through tertiary education. Instead it appears to put funding for our world class public secondary school teachers [...] read more
  January 29, 2008 4:17 pm - 12 Comments