Joel and Mary Wanhill's Youth Encounter offers youth a place to belong

Joel Wanhill talks to students at a Youth Encounter programme

Joel Wanhill, co-founder of Youth Encounter Ministries Trust along with wife Mary, knows what it is like to not 'belong' during those volatile teenage years.

This has spurred them on to want to provide a sense of belonging and purpose for youth today.

When Joel was 13 years old, his family moved to the Te Puke area.

He struggled to find good friends and to focus at school and ended up dropping out before completing Year 12 at Te Puke High School.

Surfing and skateboarding became his focus while he completed a six-month Outdoor Leadership course at polytech.

After the course he got what he thought would be a holiday job working for a kiwifruit contracting business.

Joel was working outdoors with mates and earning money so he stayed on. He went on to become the 2012 BOP Young Grower of the Year and is still employed in the kiwifruit industry today.

When he and Mary met, they realised they both had a passion for risk-taking sports and set up an events company, Encounter FMX — taking the sport of Freestyle Moto-X around the country. This was hugely popular.

A career-ending injury for Mary in 2009 brought about a change in their focus. Joel and Mary then started running Moto-X camps for youth. Impacting youth soon became a passion they both felt led to invest their lives into.

In 2012 Youth Encounter Ministries Trust was registered as a charitable trust.

The vision of Youth Encounter is 'to see young people and their families encounter their full potential to live life wide open'.

These days Youth Encounter from their base in Pongakawa, employs four staff, has over 50 volunteers and in 2019 had 450 participants across their different programmes.

The Youth Encounter team works to create fun environments where young people feel safe, heard, valued and have a sense of belonging.

They intentionally seek to provide a safe space for youth to be empowered in discovering their true self, understanding their value and to reach their God-given potential and succeed in life.

This is done through multiple activity-based programmes including dirt bike therapy, mentoring, camps, community gatherings, leadership training and employment preparation and opportunities.

Looking ahead, Youth Encounter is working towards a dream of owning its own property with purpose-built facilities to host and run its own programmes, trainings and conferences and other community events.

This would give the flexibility and resources to better shape programmes and offerings that serve people in more meaningful and life-changing ways.

Youth Encounter wants the property to be a place where all kinds of people, young and old, can gather to discover a new sense of purpose and being and where they can be encouraged to live life wide open — a life of meaningful connection, freedom and growth.