Catching up with the Youth activity
The longer days, end of exams and summer on the horizon means lots of action for our youth champions! From getting our Tackle Hangarua permissions, to multiple beach and wetland cleans with Tilde, and lots of moana interaction through the Otata Snorkel Trip and MEI programme.
Permissions permissions permissions. Some say it's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission but we've stuck at it and finally made traction getting our 'Tackle Hangarua, Recycling' pods permission to go up around our motu.
We had a field trip out to all the sites with the lovely Harry from Auckland Transport, they are enthusiastic about the possible behaviour changes, especially at Orapiu wharf. Then we met with Jules from Kaitiaki of Newton Reserve (KNR) to discuss installing a pod up at fisherman's rock, as their community group is responsible for the regeneration in that area. The group are excited to have the pods as fishing waste is a big problem down there. They even got to request their own design for it, by the wonderful Jude and Acacia!
Tilde, our youth beach clean kairuruku (coordinator) has been organising fantastic beach cleans so far focuses on Matiatia headland & Te Toki Wetland with a beautiful weave of community and iwi coming together to share knowledge and get stuck into cleaning up our waterways. The next beach clean is the “Island-wide Trash Treasure Hunt’ Thursday 19th January.
WMP partnered with EMR (Experiencing Marine Reserves) to take a group of rangatahi out to Otata- The Noises Islands in November.
Anouk Sarah Alley (aged 15) said “This trip was a wonderful experience for me. The ride to Otata Island was quite entertaining. Once we arrived at Blinking Eye Bay, we had a short break and a talk about the Island. Not long after, we went straight into snorkelling. My favourite part about it was when a Short-tail Stingray and an Eagle Ray were next to each other. Another part that I enjoyed was when we snorkelled into a cave where we could see the light coming in from the otherside, it was magical. I would definitely go on this trip again.”
We also had the absolute pleasure of hosting 40 Ngāti Paoa students from a school in Thames, Coromandel for 3 days on Piritahi Marae. They engaged in a number of whanaungatanga (relationship building) and moana actions over the 3 days. We look forward to them coming back to delve deeper and taking the lessons we have learned about hosting mainland rangatahi into future events for Tāmaki rangatahi".
WMP partnered again with MEI (Marine Education Initiative) and other local groups to bring a fun-filled experience for the students to interact from maunga to moana.
The activities consisted of snorkelling with EMR, drama for the moana and Leigh Takirau and Mereana Berger from Ngāti Paoa running activities for the students to engage with the te ao Māori creation story and Atua that shape our taiao/ environment.