FYD Waitakere has been working with West Auckland young people since 2004 and currently runs the Stars and Project K programmes with over 1000 local teens participating this year.

The FYD Waitakere Stars students from Rutherford College have had a great 2011 so far, with 320 Year 9s and 80 senior students bonding well . The Year 9s have really settled into school with the support of the peer mentors, which has been great to see.

This year’s camp took place at Camp Adair in Hunua where the students got the opportunity to experience a number of activities and challenges. Team building, problem solving and a significant amount of mud literally helped cement those relationships even further!

The students are looking forward to clearing out the mangroves behind their school as part of their Community Project and getting more involved in their Community through their Community Adventure. Term 3 will be a full-on and we are all looking forward to moving towards graduation.

“Being a Stars Peer Mentor has been a great experience for me on all different levels. Whether it was sliding and wiggling through smelly mud on the confidence course, building a Rastafarian whale to race for international language week, or just doing interacting group activities back at the classroom, it has all been a worthwhile experience not only for the year 9s, but for me as well.”

2011 Stars Peer Mentor

Our first Project K student is now a Project K mentor!

Michael Zwerink successfully graduated as a Project K Student from Waitakere College in 2007. During this time Michael set and achieved all his goals and had the amazing opportunity to skydive from a Hercules with Jump Start.

Michael’s instructors on his wilderness adventure said “As a Project K student Michael’s positive attitude never faulted and this attitude frequently encouraged others during difficult times and challenges. Michael has a quiet strength, is calm under pressure and shows great initiative . Michael  was always looking for things to do and ways to help even when others weren’t.”

When asked what he got from Project K Michael says “The massive confidence boost, learning new things about myself, knowing that if I set my mind to it I can achieve anything, making life long friendships with 12 random people."

Michael is also now a volunteer fireman, landscaper and personal trainer and FYD Waitakere were delighted when he got in touch last year and asked if he could be a mentor to a Project K student from Kelston Boys.

“I wanted to share my experience with others, wanted to  help make the students mentoring experience like mine. I wanted to give something back to the programme, as it gave me a lot, I will be forever in debt with what it gave me.

"Being a Mentor is probably harder then I thought it would be. I didn’t realise us students were quite so hard to deal with at first (setting goals, talking, opening up etc).  But I am enjoying my experience as a mentor, and the fact that I am the first student to come back and mentor for Project K – that’s pretty awesome!"   

Thank you to everyone who got involved in Westie Wednesday!!!

Please go to any BNZ in West Auckland to donate your money raised from WW to FYD Waitakere

FYD Waitakere created “Westie Wednesday” (WW) with three goals in mind;

1. to create an opportunity for the community of Waitakere to help us to support the youth out west and have fun together
2. to tell the community who FYD Waitakere are and what it is that we do
3. to raise much needed funds for FYDW to continue to provide FYD  programmes in current schools and to more schools in Waitakere 

We are delighted to tell you that we successfully achieved our “Westie Wednesday” goals!!!

Approximately 55 businesses, offices, kindies and schools took part in the inaugural “WW” and we raised around $5000! Pretty awesome for the first time!! We also know that all those who participated had a really great fun time and are very keen to do it again next year and many more people now know who & what FYDW are.

Some of the many highlights were: visiting Kelston Girls High School and seeing their fantastic “favourite rugby team theme”: Sunnyvale and Taupaki Kindy with their   “Wacky Westie Wednesday” kids : UHYHN Accountants dressed up as “Westie’s” and BNZ staff dressed as Western Cowboys. There were some pretty interesting and colourful characters!!

A big thank you to our sponsor BNZ West Auckland and the stores out West for supporting “WW”, Mega Mitre 10 Henderson for allowing us to have “The Rock Radio” Police Chicks, Cars and music on site and to all those who participated and the public who donated money on the day……    

For all sorts of reasons Next year WW will be Wednesday 13 June 2012.  Remember to get that date locked in your calendar.  Why not use “WW” to have a team building fun day at your office, school or kindy and have a gold coin donation to support The Foundation for Youth Development in Waitakere – Westie kids need your support – please help us to support them!!

Contact Amanda Bennett a.bennett@fydwaitakere.org.nz or 021 422 530 for further information.

Major supporters

Major supporters
ANZ Staff Foundation
Auckland Council West
Autex Ltd
Bentley Family
COGS
Chenery Memorial Trust
LynnMall Shopping Centre
Lotteries Commission
Karen McIntyre
Portage Licensing Trust
Trillian Trust
United Way
Waitakere Licensing Trust