Holiday Madness
The term two holidays are the coldest of the year and usually has young people across the city stuck indoors behind their electronic devices with nothing to do for the two weeks.
In the heart of Papanui, Te Ora Hou Otautahi has always delivered and supported holiday programmes to cater to the needs of the youth in the community, the need to get out of the house, connect with friends, make new friends, experience new experiences, have fun and get the opportunity to hear about this guy, Jesus.
Dusk to Dawn 2015
The holiday madness started with Dusk to Dawn 2015, an exciting 12-hour event for young people aged 13-18.
In a collaborative effort, eight organisations teamed up to make the event happen – CCC, Belfast Community Network, Shirley Community Trust, Te Ora Hou, North City Church, PYD – Papanui Youth Development Trust, Rotary Papanui, Smokefree. Two youth from the Whakapakari Leadership Programme got on board to help organise the event as well.
8pm on Friday 3rd July, 150 young people met at North City Church where they were introduced to the night to come. The energy was high and you could feel the willingness in the young people to get going. A few fun ice breakers later, everybody picked up their backpacks and hit the roads for a walk up the train tracks to PYD.
An army of hyped up young people and a bunch of youth workers arrive on foot to PYD where the first lot of activities are up for grabs. Outside is dark and cold, but inside – you can find young people taking part in a variety of activities – youth jamming in the gaming area, competing in a bit of table tennis, ascending up the rock climbing wall and grooving out at the dance party. To top it off, pizza arrived at the crack of midnight for everyone to feast on and ZM rolled in with Mr Whippy for some ice creams to go around. Jacked off the excitement, the dusk to dawn youth army and youth workers hit the road again to their next destination.
Anybody been to the movies after 12am? With support from Hoyts, Papanui Hoyts opened their doors for a midnight screening of Jurassic World. Goodies were passed around and the movie started. Asking the youth how they enjoyed the movie after it was all over, most of them would admit that they got a sneaky snooze in, just what was needed before hitting the road again.
From Hoyts, the dusk to dawn youth army jumped in an army of vans and headed to Inflatable World. The energy was high again blinding the scent of smelly socks. Everybody soaked in the fun, bouncing around on the various bouncy castles and slides up for offer, even the youth workers were getting in on the action.
After hours of bouncing around, it was time to depart. The vans pack up and headed back to Graham Condon in Papanui. The pools opened up for an hour for those who wanted to get their swim on and a lounging area opened with a variety of activities. A nail polishing pamper corner, mattresses and inflatable couches for those struggling to keep their feet on the ground and their eyes open, left over pizza for the hungry ones, an art canvas for those wanting to explore their creative side and a sports hall opened with dodgeball, basketball and spin cycle options to choose from. By this time (4am), half of the young people were tired and struggling to stay awake to see the end, but they got through it and headed off on foot to their last destination.
Back to where it began at North City Church for a hot breakfast. The end of an epic 12 hour programme.
Nothing but tired bodies eating back the hot breakfast before departing for home for most likely the longest sleep on a Saturday morning of the year. Happy and home.
Term 2 Holiday Programme
With a couple of days rest, Te Ora Hou were back with a holiday programme to deliver. This time, Reuben, Tatiana and Dave – the second year Praxis interns of TOH, designed a three day holiday programme where youth who are involved in any of the TOH programmes could attend.
Tuesday 7th July – The first day of the holiday programme consisted of two activities.
The first activity was a film challenge, where everybody was split into four even teams, they were given a different scene from The Lego Movie which they had 30 minutes to plan how to re-create their given scene. They then had 15 minutes to film it. Each team were told that they were going to be scored and placed, determined by the creativity, accuracy, complexity and participation of each team. Each team took up the challenge and were told that the video’s would go into edit and then shown at the end of the holiday programme on Thursday.
Pizza fed the young people and gave them the needed boost to get on with the next activity. Vicki Campbell, the Taiohi Tu coordinator, ran afternoon games with the young people, which included traditional maori games.
Wednesday 8th July – The night prior gifted the South Island with a beautiful snow fall. Perfect set up for a snow day.
Young people were picked up in the morning by the leaders and brought into Te Ora Hou for a debriefing before hitting the roads. A good hour and a half driving inland, an army of four van loads of young people and leaders arrive to Porters Pass for a day in the snow.
Thursday 10th July – a day on the ice.
Alarms go off on a cold morning in Christchurch, waking up young people and youth workers, a reminder that fun is in store for the day, otherwise they could just stay in bed being the holidays and all. Youth workers have planned to head out to Adrenaline Forest, but due to the unpredictable weather, vans pick up the holiday programme army for a last time and headed out to Alpine Ice Sports and Entertainment Centre for Ice Skating instead. The choice proves to be a great alternative.
The vans take the young people back to Te Ora Hou for a feast of homemade burgers to fill them up. Before the vans do the final drop offs to conclude the holiday programme, the young people not only for the first time get to see the film challenge videos but they get to see the results.
Goodies were given to each team for a great effort before heading home from an awesome three day holiday programme.
The first week of the term two holidays over, getting young people out of the house to connect with friends, make new friends, experience new experiences, have a ball of a time and get the opportunity to hear about this guy, Jesus.
The Te Ora Hou youth work team will now get their rest and prep for term three where they will continue to go out and deliver the various youth programmes in and out of schools that they do on a termly basis.
For more information, contact the youth work team here.
Leave a comment