The Wairoa District Council is stepping up to provide local youth with work experience opportunities.

The Council is taking on five young people across a range of departments from the library and IT to customer services, policy and governance and engineering.

The national Licence to Work programme is being delivered through the Wairoa Young Achievers’ Trust with 10 participants expected to be placed this year.

The programme involves an initial assessment of skills and a re-assessment at the end of the year to measure how the participant has grown from their work experience.

Council’s Information and Customer Experience Group Manager Kimberley Tuapawa said the programme means Wairoa’s youth are gaining valuable workplace experience while also learning about how the Council operates.

“Council has total support for the programme and can offer a range of workplace environments to introduce young people to areas they have a particular interest in.

“This is a fantastic initiative to provide local youth with an opportunity to “taste-test” the many and varied choices for work in local government.”

The Licence to Work Programme is a cross-sector, business-led initiative, designed to respond to business and industry concerns that young people may not be developing the soft skills needed to succeed in the workplace.

The programme provides an explicit sequence of learning activities to build the competencies business leaders have said they want to see young people display, and a process to assess and record them.

It is open to all young people, from mainstream and correspondence students to unemployed youth.

The programme is being delivered by Wairoa Young Achievers’ Trust manager of youth services Denise Eaglesome-Karekare, who along with colleague Bev Jury trained to be able to provide the initiative in Wairoa.

Ms Eaglesome-Karekare said the programme will cater for 10 places this year and will keep growing if more young people are interested in taking part.

“This opportunity is open to all young people in Wairoa. If you are interested in taking part call into the EIT building on Paul Street in Wairoa where Bev and I are now based.

“I also encourage any business owners who would like to be involved to contact us.”

Council chief executive Steven May said it is excellent to see the range of Council staff involved in supporting this initiative which provides young people with a chance to experience a variety of Council work environments.

As well as the Council, students will also be placed at The Wairoa Star, The Limery and other local businesses.

Caption: 

Youth Service client and correspondence student Gabriella Emberson, pictured left, is one of the first participants to be involved with the Wairoa Young Achievers’ Trust Licence to Work Programme. She is gaining work experience at the Wairoa Library as part of the programme and is pictured with Wairoa Young Achievers’ Trust manager of youth services Denise Eaglesome-Karekare.

16 April 2019

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