Youth leaders share ideas

Creating jobs, dealing with binge drinking culture, and improving education – teens attending a leadership forum in New Plymouth had bold ideas for change.

About 40 Year 12 and Year 13 students from seven Taranaki schools attended the Youth Leadership Symposium to speak up on issues they care about and to share solutions to problems facing their generation now and in the future.

One of the main issues discussed by the students, who were organised into mixed groups from schools, was alcohol abuse and the peer pressure fuelling it. The lack of opportunity for teens from single sex schools to meet often led to young people turning to alcohol to feel relaxed and confident when they do socialise, said New Plymouth Boys’ High School participant Corrigan Millar.

‘‘But this isn’t healthy for us,’’ he said. ‘‘It’s extremely dangerous…it results in bad social experiences, like drinkdriving or rape – one of the worst ones.’’

Students from New Plymouth Boys’ High School, New Plymouth Girls’ High School, Waitara High School, Sacred Heart Girls’ College, Inglewood High School, Opunake High School, and St Mary’s Diocesan School in Stratford attended the forum.