Unlimited Potential 2004 Grant Recipients |
Te Awaroa Youth Club: The Place Where Youth can Have Fun, Learn Heaps and Enjoy Life
Based in Helensville, north-west of Auckland, the Te Awaroa Youth Club seeks to encourage the young people of the Kaipara District to recognise and realise their full potential by providing a place for them to go where they can learn skills and develop an individual style.
Established in 2002, the Club primarily targets youth aged 12 to 17, although there are programmes and facilities that the whole community can enjoy. For example, the Club offers home-work help, job-seeking education, cooking classes, a “Youth at Risk” programme, gardening projects, fitness sessions, Maori language and customs classes, design and arts and crafts projects, computing and boxing classes.
To help provide their local community members with the best possible chance at gaining employment, further education and self sufficiency, the Youth Club will use its partnership with Microsoft and the Unlimited Potential programme to extend its technical development opportunities and to develop a dedicated technology centre.
Over the coming 12 months, the Club hopes to be able to support around 240 local people in gaining new technology and communication skills. The grant from Microsoft will enable the Club to employ skilled computer training staff and implement the Unlimited Potential training programme. The Club will also receive software from Microsoft, so local people gain skills in the most work-relevant applications.
Heidi Bassett, Manager of Te Awaroa Youth Club applauds the Microsoft initiative and is confident that the Kaipara District can show other communities what a positive difference technical development programmes can have on individuals and families in achieving employment, further education and self sufficiency.
”We believe the technical training centre will offer valuable tools which will aid our youth and others in furthering their education and enabling a significant chance of employment.”
Approach: Helping Create a Connected Community
Since 1987, the Dunedin Methodist Mission through Approach has operated an Adult Learning Centre. The overall focus of the centre is to create long-term change and growth for good, with a more specific goal of enabling people to restart learning and to find their own ways of contributing to their communities.
Approach believes that by helping local South Dunedin-ites gain the skills and confidence to successfully participate in community life, and in employment, South Dunedin is on the path to achieving a more “connected community” in every sense of the term.
As Approach has grown and evolved, there have been an increasing focus on enabling people who are without work or who are looking to return to work to gain lifelong skills in communication and information technology. The organisation is finding that computers and the use of computers are more often than not the hook that draws people to participate in its learning programmes.
Approach currently provides learning opportunities in computing skills, particularly aimed for people with little or no experience with technology. These two courses include a free "Very Basic Computing" course with small class sizes and real tutors and a new Call Centre course aimed at the long-term unemployed and women returning to work. This latter course is delivered on behalf of the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC). Approach is in the process of extending these programmes to include a combined literacy and computing programme for Pacific Island people, in partnership with the Pacific Island Resource Centre.
Being a small organisation working in a small city community, Approach firmly believes partnership is both an effective and creative means to effect change in its community, and in the lives of people they work with.
Microsoft's Unlimited Potential programme will enable Approach to fund more skilled staff, purchase new computer equipment to boost the number of computers, provide access to the latest Microsoft software and a new training programme. This programme will be delivered through Approach's existing centre and partner locations.
Discussions are underway promoting increased co-operation and partnership between the various local community groups and schools in the district.
Approach is an accredited and registered tertiary education provider, recently Chartered to pursue its vision: lifelong learning, increased participation, valued contribution, interdependence, and self-determination.
Nick Orbell, Director of Approach Employment and Training Programmes is delighted that the people of South Dunedin will be one of the first communities to benefit from Microsoft's Unlimited Potential.
“The South Dunedin Community has more than its fair share of people without qualifications, or without skills in computing or access to the Internet.
“We know that these are just some of the barriers to people breaking out of poverty, but this support will enable us, with some other community groups, to make real learning opportunities available in this community. We are looking to work in partnerships to make best use of our resources and believe this collaborative approach will be a key factor in enabling local change,” says Orbell.
“The donation from Microsoft will enable us to help around 300 local people gain new skills and confidence with computers and Information Technology. This in turn will improve their job and promotion prospects, and strengthen learning in their own families. We hope to increase Connection in our community, in more ways than one!”