Connecting youth in Ōrākei

Youth of Ōrākei mural project, 2025.

The projects Youth of Ōrākei delivers vary each year. Past events include tree planting events, Quizex (a cross between a quiz night and Mathex), a music competition, a clothing drive, leadership conferences, careers workshops and a mural painting project.

An annual favourite is the Youth Film Festival.

"It's an outlet for local media studies students, who create a film as part of their media studies assessments," explains Aaron.

"For young film makers, there's not really a platform to showcase their film making talent. We thought 'why don't we give them a chance to show this to the community?'

"The films are submitted online with a brief synopsis and then everyone gets together one night at the cinemas in Mission Bay and we play all the films on the big screen.

"That's probably the main project that inspired me and a lot of people to join the council as well."

For anyone keen to head along to upcoming events, you can follow them on Instagram - @youthoforakei or Facebook.

If you or a young person you know is interested in becoming a member, they do a recruitment drive every year around September.

Aaron says they have a close relationship with the secondary schools in the area which nominate students each year, but you can also nominate yourself.

"There is no feeling quite like seeing a rough brainstorming session turn into a successful event that tangibly improves the lives of rangatahi.

"To be surrounded by a team of like-minded and driven young individuals all working to create positive change in the community has made this experience incredibly fulfilling."

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