Youth voices
The development of a Youth Plan to support the Child and Youth Wellbeing Strategy is underway. The focus of the Youth Plan is about turning youth voices into action on cross-cutting issues that matter, as well as supporting the development of solutions that enable rangatahi to contribute to government policy.
Aotearoa Youth Declaration
We supported young leaders to deliver the Aotearoa Youth Declaration, UN Youth New Zealand’s flagship civics education conference, in April 2019. The conference aimed to equip participating rangatahi with a deeper understanding of their place within their community and the ways they can actively contribute to it.
Facilitators guided 250 participants in small groups, each centred around a different policy area. Over four days they participated in workshops, visited various businesses and organisations, and heard from industry experts to further engage with their chosen topic. Participants then developed policy solutions on the issues and areas most important to them. These were brought together in the Aotearoa Youth Declaration, a document to give to decision-makers to inform them of a youth vision for Aotearoa.
Youth Parliament 2019
MYD facilitated the tri-annual Youth Parliament programme from 1 March 2019 [32]. The programme supported 120 Youth Members of Parliament to initiate and progress projects on topics they are passionate about and to prepare for the two-day event, and 20 Youth Press Gallery members to write profiles and articles on Youth MPs.
Footnotes
[32] Youth Parliament 2019 culminated in a two-day event at Parliament on 16 and 17 July 2019.
