RattedOut! Aotearoa- Wellington High School 2017
After visiting and volunteering on the motu (island) of Matiu-Somes at the beginning of their Papa Taiao year, the students at Wellington High School were inspired to take action to help Predator Free Wellington. They began their journey by meeting the Churton Park predator free leader, Kalvin Hastie. He recommended they build predator traps for the Wellington community because Haynes Pallets is the only commercial supplier of trap boxes in the Wellington Region. They named themselves Ratted Out! Aotearoa and went to work developing an enterprise to provide traps to Wellingtonians.
However, after conducting some market research, the students discovered that the cost of producing rat trap boxes was too high to compete with Haynes. They went back to the drawing board, and instead, decided to organise community trap box building days. This, they decided, would not only increase the number of traps in Wellington, but it would also educate the public about the importance of trapping. During the workshop they included information about how to build and correctly set the trap. They provided every participant with an information brochure to take home.
Papa Taiao student Solomon Powell helps a workshop participant put together her trap
They delivered one very successful workshop at the beautiful Tapu Te Ranga Marae with 10 attendees. They supported the marae to engage with trapping by donating them two trap boxes. They planned to deliver four workshops but due to school commitments, they did not reach their goal.
The team was the the founding Papa Taiao group at Wellington High School. Because it was so new, the class was not timetabled and the students worked outside of their regular five/six class subjects. This did not stop Anna Gehricke and Solomon Powell from putting in a huge effort during the year and submitting an annual review (link at the bottom of the page). Their hard word resulted in them winning the Sustainable Practice Award in the 2017 Young Enterprise Scheme Wellington City Awards.
To read more about their business read their Annual Review here: https://drive.google.com/a/papataiaoearthcare.nz/file/d/105NTZdR1EN8VLKsiTTb7Vlb2shWB0O69/view?usp=sharing
Ratted Out! Aotearoa students Anna Gehricke and Solomon Powell receiving their YES award.