Helping to get jobs

August 30, 2018

 

Employment Minister Willie Jackson (centre)  catching up with EIT Tairawhiti campus director Jan Mogford and EIT chief executive Chris Collins during the Minister’s visit to Toihoukura this week.

 

Three organisations helping some of the district’s least employable young people were yesterday given grants totalling nearly $1 million.

Employment Minister Willie Jackson made no apologies in saying the grants were targeted at Maori youth, saying that their employment statistics were two or three times worse than the unemployment statistics for the region overall, which were otherwise improving.

“A lot of our young people are not working and not training. A lot of our whanau now have intergenerational unemployment and in some cases, intergenerational drug and alcohol use,” he told a large gathering at Toihoukura’s Maia Gallery at EIT yesterday.

Rather than taking a punitive approach, the Government’s philosophy was to give them a chance.

“Rather than knocking their benefit if they are late for work we have decided to give them some support,” he said.

Some of these rangatahi (young people) were nowhere near work ready.

“We have to pick them up and awhi (support) them; we need to bring in a level of compassion,” he said.

There were people and groups in the community who were already committed to working with some of these young people and helping them turn their lives around. but they needed some resources.

Hence the Government has introduced He Poutama Rangatahi programme- Youth Employment Pathways.

It was not always easy to work with young people and the funding was not huge.

“We need to see some outcomes so I can get more funding and support,” he told the organisations involved.

Getting assistance for their work were Turanga Ararau, the ASET Trust and EIT.

Turanga Ararau were given $200,000 towards their programme targeted at people aged from 16-24 who had a background of intergenerational unemployment and drug and alcohol use. They had a land-based project based in Ruatoria where people were learning hands-on erosion control and farm work that was opening pathways into jobs.

EIT was granted $214,500 over 18 months for a programme based at its Ruatoria campus where, in conjunction with the Department of Conservation, it was working with young people learning basic skills for the land-based economy and ecology, including plant and pest recognition, fencing and pest control which was connecting them with the workforce.

EIT Tairawhiti already had the highest Maori participation rate for any institute in the country at just over 70 percent, said Tairawhiti campus director Jan Mogford. It was also leading the way in achieving parity of achievement between Maori and non-Maori and would continue to work with marae, schools and other community organisations to boost these outcomes, she said.

The ASET (Aotearoa Social Enterprise Trust) was granted $447,628 over two years, for its work with people aged 16-24, who had gang affiliations, drug and alcohol problems and other issues. Based at Kaiti Mall this not-for-profit trust, comprising chairman Meng Foon and trustees Larry Foster and Leighton Packer, has formed a working relationship with a local sawmill, has a market garden supplying Gisborne Pak’n Save with broccoli, capsicums and kumara and a catering contract with the RSA in Gisborne, all providing pathways into work experience and jobs.

Common to all was a strong pastoral care network, life skills mentoring, some using motivational speakers such as sportspeople.

Some of these young people did not have IRD numbers, bank accounts or drivers licences when they first joined the programme, said ASET Co-ordinator Leighton Packer.

“They need wrap-around support to get into work, “ she said.

“They need to learn to dream – a lot of them have no dreams or aspirations. We can’t do this by ourselves but we can all do this together and make Tairawhiti an awesome place.”