Newlands Community Centre

01/06/201019/05/2017

Opt In / Drop In

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Term One has been and gone in a flash, and in the blink of an eye we find ourselves at the start of Term Two, wondering where the months went. So, let’s take it back to the beginning of Term One, which is where this story begins… This is when we got an exciting new contract to provide youth services at the Newlands Community Centre!

We were set the task to provide a drop in centre three afternoons a week and at least one other afternoon where we were to offer a set activity to the awesome young people of Newlands community.

Towards the end of term one, we came up with a great concept of Opt in / Drop In. This meant that four days a week we would run the drop in centre, BUT also on those four days we would offer OPT In Activities. This meant that the young people chose whether they joined in on that particular activity by signing up on the activity sheet. We offered activities like Sports Day, Drama afternoon, Board games afternoon and even tried to set up a table tennis competition! It was slow to start, but we have had some great successes, like our Easter Egg Hunt on Wednesday March 31st! We even ran a couple of great school holiday programme days.

For the school holiday programmes we had an Amazing Race Day, where we had two teams guessing the rhyming riddles to get to different destinations around most of Wellington. The young people had a great time, with lots of different and creative photos to prove it. Our next holiday day programme was a sports day where we competed at Newlands Park and enjoyed a relaxing lunch at the Newlands Community Centre.

This term, we’re still offering the Opt in Activities with a few surprises thrown in. It’s a matter of growing what we have started and continuing to build on the activities we offer, showing the young people of Newlands our commitment to them.

We’ll keep you up to date with what is going on at the Newlands Community Centre – Youth Services.

Bridget, Michelle, Tui and Kirsty

Another busy start to the year

30/05/201019/05/2017

This year has been busy and is flying by so quickly. We at Challenge 2000 are kept busy with running Individual programmes, Challenge College, Newlands Community Centre, youth group and other youth programmes, overnight camps, staff training, farewells and welcome-parties! In between staff have snatched some time to continue planning and goal setting for the rest of 2010.
We have a wonderful team of passionate, experienced and qualified youth, and social and community work staff, who are geared up to provide a variety of innovative, and holistic programmes for the young people and families who access our services.

We now have a new manager for our Youth and Family Centre. Congratulations, and welcome to your new role Tina.

Along with this, Challenge has gone through some structural changes. Bridget Roche has responsibility for operational management of Challenge while Kitty remains Challenge 2000’s leader and will continue to supervise the GAP programme, special projects, ministry and development, build partnerships with corporates and government and mentor senior staff.

Challenge College

29/05/201019/05/2017

Challenge College –

Alternative Education Programme

Challenge College has started off really well. The students have
worked continuously hard with their correspondence work and are making real
progress. Our afternoon sessions have worked well with Sport, Drama, Girls
Group and our newest activity ‘Keeping Johnsonville Beautiful’, where we
go around Johnsonville parks and pick up rubbish. Giving back to the
community!

The last week of term saw us out and about in Wellington on our EOTC Week
(Education Outside The Classroom). A few activities we did were rock
climbing, lawn bowls, driving range, swimming, a big coastal walk (visiting
the Ataturk Memorial and Wahine site), watched Hurricanes training, a walk
through the Botanical Gardens and many more! It was a great week of team
building and new experiences for the students.

As money is tight at the moment (well always) we sent a letter out to various Marist Colleges in New Zealand asking if they could run some fundraising activities in their school and donate the funds to Challenge College. We were very lucky and grateful to have a few schools send us some donations, which helped us fund out EOTC Week.

Below are some photos of our activities for the week.

EOTC Week – Lawn bowls

EOTC Week – Indoor rock climbing

ANZAC Day Trip – Gerard Tully talks about the Kilbirnie Memorial

ANZAC Day Trip – visit to the War Memorial

Kitty talks about the memorial in the Anglican Cathedral

Students visit the Ataturk Memorial

EOTC Week – team building exercise – after the van broke down!

Donate to Challenge 2000

11/05/201019/05/2017

Challenge 2000 relies on community support for much of its work.

Anything that you can donate to our work will be much appreciated.

If you wish to contribute to our work, then a cheque may be sent to

Challenge 2000
P O Box 13059
Johnsonville

or call us for our bank account details for monthly payments.

Thank you for your support!

Acting Up

11/05/201019/05/2017

Since being a part of Challenge 2000 I have put my theatrical skills to use in creating and staging small scale shows with the students at Challenge College. Last year we explored Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and at the end of the 2009 the audience was invited to a party in Porirua in the play called “It’s My Party.”

This year we will have a devised performance to prepare and we’ll be revisiting Shakespeare’s works in term 3. I have been a professional theatre practitioner for 10 years as a composer, actor, writer, director and just recently I co-wrote and performed a play in the International Arts Festival called He Reo Aroha which will do a return season at Circa Theatre in June. In April this year I was invited to Hong Kong to workshop with students as part of an International Youth Theatre Project called Strangers 2.

I look forward to working with the Challenge College students this term to devise an exciting piece we can perform back to the community.

Ma te wa

Jamie McCaskill

Exciting New Project – LSV

11/05/201019/05/2017

April has been an exciting month with the beginning of a partnership with the New Zealand Defence Force on their LSV (Limited Service Volunteer) Programme at Trentham. Challenge 2000 is providing the social work component on the 6 weeks programme for young unemployed New Zealanders. Tina Wilkins and Ed Thirlwall are sharing this role and so far it is proving to be a rewarding and exciting project for all concerned.

Tina Wilkins

Tina says “ This is an exciting partnership which enables us to really make a difference to the LSV participants and be part of a high functioning team. ”

Ed agrees “Trentham is a fantastic environment in which to work and it’s great and professionally rewarding to be part of the Tri-Services group that operates LSV ”.

Ed Thirlwall

So watch this space as to what happens next.

Challenge 2000 is grateful for this opportunity to utilise and develop the skills of our own social work staff

Prime Minister visits Challenge

10/05/201019/05/2017

March 2nd was a historical day at Challenge 2000. We hosted the Prime Minister, the Honourable John Key, for meetings and a scrumptious lunch!

Hekia Prata, National MP for Porirua requested that the Prime Minister visit Challenge 2000 to hear and see what sorts of youth services and programmes we offered the young people of Porirua. Mr Key met Community Max Staff, youth workers, Alternative Education Students and staff, our social workers based at Mana, Bishop Viard and Porirua Colleges, our Youth Justice specialists and many of our youth volunteers and young people. Mr Key was easy to relate to, remembered everyone’s names and seemed genuinely interested in Challenge 2000’s work and dreams for the future of Aotearoa – New Zealand.

Mr Key also helped with some tree planting

Mr Key was also prepared to give everything a go – wood chopping, tree planting and anything else that was suggested. A real Kiwi can-do attitude. Kitty also presented Challenge 2000’s hopes of being a Whanau Ora provider to him – here’s hoping