2019 Predator Free Leadership Programme Wellington
In 2019 Papa Taiao piloted a Leadership programme to develop high school students across central Wellington into environmental leaders in their schools and communities.
The workshops developed leadership skills and connect students with key people working in sustainability to help with the development of environmental projects in their schools and/or communities. The leaders were asked to engage as many students as possible in their projects resulting in enhanced school-wide environmental awareness, culture of kaitiakitanga (guardianship) and empowerment through action. We were impressed by the driven an incredibly inspiring bunch of students in the programme.
Whakawhanaungatanga camp at Matiu-Somes island
The programme started with an overnight camp on the beautiful and unique Matiu-Somes Island in the Wellington Harbour. Most of the students didn’t know each other but the ice was quickly broken and relationships started flourishing. The students encountered all the taonga (treasures) the island had to offer; the young, recently restored native bush teeming with kākāriki during the day, with an abundance of giant weta and tuatara at night. A snorkelling session run by the crew at Mountains to Sea also showed off it’s coastline with pāua, kina, an array of fish and a school of dolphins in the distance. This illustrated the impressive biodiversity of Wellington and the species abundance that a relatively recent, mostly voluntary, restoration project can produce.
Students reflected on their experiences and discussed the environmental issues they were most concerned about. The three issues they highlighted included climate change, waste and biodiversity loss. Owain, from the social enterprise Squawk Squad (restoring Aotearoa’s birdlife through technology and school engagement), ran a session on how to engage people in sustainability.
The students brain-stormed possible solutions, which resulted in a short-list of projects. They analysed the pros, cons and feasibility of each and returned to school with project ideas for further consideration and the intention to rally support from students and teachers.
Meeting 1 - Project planning at Wellington City Council
Wellington City Council kindly hosted our second meeting. Staff working in the biodiversity team including Illona Keenan (Biosecurity Specialist Pest Plants), Henk Lowe (Biosecurity Specialist – Pest Animals), Daniella Biaggio (Manager Urban Ecology), Anita Benbrook (Biodiversity Specialist – Plants ) provided insight into the work the council does to manage our green spaces, enhance biodiversity and tips for running a successful project.
The second part of the session was dedicated to project planning. Mentors arrived at this point to be introduced to their mentees. The mentors were purposely selected by Papa Taiao for their relevant expertise and networks. The mentors were from a range of organisations such as Conservation Volunteers, Waste-Ed, Kilbirnie Community Gardens, Generation Zero and Wellington City Council. The mentors’ role was to help the students with feedback, brainstorming who they could ask for community support and goal setting.
Meeting 2 - Visioning workshop at Wellington Regional Council
The wonderful Chloe from Enviroschools hosted our third meeting at WRC. Students met climate change scientist Dr Alex Pezza, Policy Advisor Tim Blackman, and sustainable transport projects coordinator Susan Hutchinson-Daniels who shared with students their roles and backgrounds in sustainability. The students were led through a visioning workshop, visualising what an ideal environment could look and feel like at their schools. Students then brainstormed practical next steps for their project development using a topographic map or a year planner.
The meeting finished with a discussion on the key qualities of a leader. The students agreed on the following key leadership qualities; Kind, reliable, assertive, realistic, idealistic, genuine and confident.
Meeting 3 - Fundraising at Biz Dojo
On the first day of term, students hit the ground running with a meeting at the shared office space Biz Dojo. They were introduced to two freelancers, Arzoo Syeddah and Ness Radich who shared their experiences entering the field of social enterprise through their passion for social change.
We were then joined by fundraising expert, Katie Martin, who has 8 years experience working in fundraising for charities including WWF. The students were led through a two hour session on how to fund a project, writing a funding application and different fundraising strategies.
To flex their fundraising muscles, the students were given the opportunity to write a funding application for a $250 Papa Taiao fund to get their projects underway.
Meeting 4 - Marketing at Meridian Energy
We kicked off with Meridian staff discussing their roles and backgrounds to illustrate Meridian and the corporate/private sectors work in sustainability. It was a great illumination of the unique paths people take to work in sustainability. The Meridian staff finished by fielding questions from students, discussing what marketing methods they use to reach more people.
Larissa Banks, a marketing guru, ran a social media and marketing workshop, sharing her knowledge on impactful marketing strategy. Students’ main takeaway was the social media ‘rule of thirds’ for engaging as many as possible with their project! #impactful.
Sarah Tuck, the marketing manager of Coliberate, a social enterprise with a mission to improve mental health in Aotearoa, ran a workshop on the importance of storytelling. The students were asked to retell the story of Cinderella as a group, with very little preparation. Feedback was given on the power of using enthusiasm, body language, live eyes and creative expression to engage an audience in a story.
The students used the rest of the session to discuss and develop the promotion strategies they could use for their projects.
Fifth meeting - Measuring success and the future of conservation at Department of Conservation (DoC)
DoC’s Gavin Bryce (DOC’s Youth Policy Advisor) started us off with an engaging spiel on DoC’s new biodiversity strategy. Students were compelled by the forward thinking and well planned strategy with consultation revolving in equitable input and prioritising of Aotearoa’s wide range of voices, concerns and needs. The youth voice is highly prized by DoC so the meeting was the perfect opportunity for Gavin to run a session to collect data and responses from our student leaders. Gavin then gave us a tour of the DoC office, showcasing the great range of mahi DoC is undertaking and the many career pathways within DoC.
We then undertook a quick lesson on valid measurement methods, to stress the importance of gathering data to evaluate impact. We discussed how data can be used to adjust the project plan, report success and garner support. The students used this information to figure out their own valid methods for measuring the success of their projects.
Sixth meeting - Project SWOT analysis at the Sustainability Trust.
Students felt very much at home in the inspiring space at the Sustainability Trust, with our host Kim Tabrum, an educator at the Trust. She showed off the dazzling array of environmental initiatives the Trust undertakes; reusing waste materials, donating free curtains and providing affordable energy saving solutions. Their store was an excellent illustration of the market and potential for more eco-friendly consumer products.
Students then undertook a Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis of their projects. This illustrated the power of foresight to better prepare for possible issues in their project, play to their strengths and plan to take on any potential opportunities.
Meeting 7 - Te Ao Māori and Kaitiakitanga at the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority (EECA)
The group of leaders were fresh from the school holidays to sink their teeth into some discussion around using a te ao Māori perspective and the concept of Kaitiakitanga for engaging people in sustainability. Freya Wall from EECA started the meeting with an overview of their work. She enlightened us all on how important government agencies are working behind the scenes to make impacts on carbon emissions.
One of the student leaders Christian, a Papa Taiao tauira from Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o Ngā Mokopuna, gave a presentation on his perspective. He shared how he has incorporated te ao Māori into his project. He did an excellent job of showing how their primary goal was to enhance Kaitiakitanga in Seatoun and why it was so important to achieve sustainability outcomes. The meeting finished with students embodying a Māori Pūrākau to get a feel for the different ways cultures explain the world around them. This was actioned as a competition between the students on who could best act out the story of how the Kiwi lost its wings - ka rawe!
Meeting 8 - Project Succession and gathering data at Infratech
Micah Sherman, a Project Manager at Infratech, kicked off the meeting. He gave an overview of how his organisation makes an impact on the world, by empowering isolated communities (mostly in the Pacific) who need renewable, reliable power systems while reducing carbon emissions. He shared with the students how important it is for Infratech to use valid, reliable data to continue making a positive impact.
Laura Ansell from the social enterprise impact consultancy, Ākina, then presented more advice around the importance of data collection and sharing success stories. After the sessions, students were all jazzed up about the idea of data collection for boosting their projects impact and used their learnings to work on their final presentations. They finished the evened by engaging in a Most Significant Change Workshop to reflect on how their attitudes and behaviours had changed throughout the year.
Meeting 9 - Project reflection and presentation skills at Credenza
Our final meeting gave the students a chance to reflect on their mahi throughout the year. Sustainability consultant, Bobby Lloyd, gave a presentation on the four pillars of sustainability, linking those domains via systems thinking. He also gave a brief run down on some tricks and tips for how to present effectively. The students then broke away to write about how the four domains related to their project and how they had incorporated each one. They finished by working on their final presentations, with Bobby giving invaluable feedback to each student on their draft presentations.
Final celebration and presentation at Sustainability Trust
We finished the year with a heartwarming celebration of all the awesome accomplishments of the leaders throughout the year at the Sustainability Trust. Each student or project team spent 5-10 minutes presenting what their projects were, what went well and how it had changed their attitudes and behaviours towards contributing to a sustainable future. The audience included everyone involved in the programme; teachers, mentors, hosts and facilitators. After their presentations students fielded an array of questions and positive comments from the audience. We we’re all buzzing from the night and are so proud of what they have achieved, with some clear life long skills, stronger values and invaluable connections developed over the programme.
You can watch the final presentations of all student projects in the below videos:
Andreas and Ben (Onslow College and Wellington College yr13)- Reducing latex glove use in supermarkets https://drive.google.com/a/papataiaoearthcare.nz/file/d/1MUQrdI_Ks8LsrmDmpkSF5KGW-N7y5tvu/view?usp=sharing
Arianna (Onslow College yr11)- Connecting year 9s to nature through tree planting
Christian and Watene (Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o Ngā Mokopuna yr 13)- Cultural history tour in Oruaiti Reserve
Finn (Newlands College yr 12)- Enviro-group running trapping and planting on the school grounds
Kalista (Newlands College yr 11)- Pushing for better waste systems at the school
Logan (Wellington College yr13)- XeroBox, an enterprise encouraging people to go plastic free
Tony (Onslow College yr 12)- Trapping on the school grounds to increase biodiversity
https://drive.google.com/a/papataiaoearthcare.nz/file/d/1F9M8OzjegJu4GhBjVSbyDmygeDqTxllx/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/a/papataiaoearthcare.nz/file/d/1OsZGZ0XYl6NIvH984uKNKtVgs5x19hFL/view?usp=sharing
Alexa and Ursula (Wellington College yr 11)- Increasing native biodiversity on their school bank
https://drive.google.com/a/papataiaoearthcare.nz/file/d/1GVDU22o_k4ymYguXZB40-Ec7NiCrr9j1/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/a/papataiaoearthcare.nz/file/d/1NveisJw--13dgqBQbITDzV0neBOqqaVN/view?usp=sharing