Sian gets her best job
You could say Taupo¯ environmentalist Sian Moffitt has come full circle.
Four years ago she was a keen year 13 student at Tauhara College desperate to get involved in the pilot of the newly-formed youth environment group Kids Greening Taupo¯ . Now she’s about to start a 33-week contract as an education co-ordinator with Kids Greening Taupo¯ , helping educate environmentalists of the future.
While it eventually became the springboard to an environmental career, Sian’s initial involvement with Kids Greening Taupo¯ was almost over as soon as it started. Although she had heard about the pilot scheme and was keen to join, at that stage the organisers wanted only younger students. But Sian soon proved she was willing to do whatever it took.
“I knew that was my passion,” she says. “I had just come off the Sir Peter Blake Young Enviro Leaders Forum with 52 delegates from around New Zealand and I was really passionate to get involved with a programme like [Kids Greening Taupo¯ ] and keep the ball rolling, so I said I’d be the photographer and just stand in the corner and won’t say anything.”
But Sian quickly proved herself and she was invited to become a student mentor involved in events. She also had the opportunity to work with Good Design and a working group to come up with a logo for Kids Greening Taupo¯ . She was MC at the group’s launch event. Her involvement just kept growing.
When Sian headed to Wellington to study for a Bachelor of Science at Victoria University majoring in ecology and biodiversity and environmental studies, her links to Kids Greening Taupo¯ continued. Whenever she came back to Taupo¯ she would help out with the organisation, filming and photography of events, as well as Greening Taupo¯ planting days. Meanwhile, in Wellington she was involved with the Society for Conservation Biology’s Places for Penguins project, monitoring little blue penguins around the Wellington coast and spreading awareness. In her second year she joined more environmental groups, including the newly-formed Forest & Bird Youth group, created to bridge the gap between the Kiwi Conservation Club for younger students and the older demographic that tended to make up the majority of Forest & Bird membership.
“They [Forest & Bird] were starting up hubs for young people across the country and I started the Wellington hub and ran it the same as Kids Greening Taupo¯ based on their collaborative community education model.”
In Wellington, Forest & Bird Youth organised environmental opportunities that were accessible to young people, including planting days, field trips, workshops on topics such as feeding native birds, and a successful networking event at Victoria University.
“It was a lot of stuff going on and because of that I learned how to juggle things really well and how to stay focused. Being busy has really taught me to be organised. I learned very quickly that I needed to get things done as soon as I possibly could . . . I had so much fun doing all these amazing events, getting involved with the local community and networking.”
In her new role working with Kids Greening Taupo¯ fellow education co-ordinator Thea De Petris, Sian will be working with six local schools and kindergartens and Kids Greening Taupo¯ student leaders as well as implementing new initiatives.
She says she was excited to be offered the position as she finished her degree because she is passionate about working with children and getting them to care about the environment. And it might even lead some of them into an environmental career. She says her future direction was set during that last year at college.
“Everything I’ve done, I’ve learned from Kids Greening Taupo¯ and YELF [Young Enviro Leaders Forum]. Everything stems from that.”