SETTING SCENE: Rebecca Vengunst, Wairarapa Youth Council member, talks to the audience about their projects, including Waigrown, a Ki-o-rahi tournament and a Students Against Drink Driving social.
SETTING SCENE: Rebecca Vengunst, Wairarapa Youth Council member, talks to the audience about their projects, including Waigrown, a Ki-o-rahi tournament and a Students Against Drink Driving social.
Celebrity Wairarapa entertainers Ben Boyce and Ladyhawke last night made surprise video appearances at the Lower North Island Youth Council Conference 2014 in Masterton.
Connecting Communities youth-development co-ordinators and conference organisers Glenda Seville and Sarah Taylor-Waitere said motivational video messages from the renowned pair of performers, who come from Cartertonand Masterton respectively, were screened as a surprise for conference-goers at a formal dinner and entertainment function in the town last night.
A similar Speak Out for Youth Week was held in Wairarapa last year for "local speakers and local youth" and the conference this year had a broader geographical reach and vision that for the first time in Wairarapa explored the function and practices of youth councils in the North Island central south region.
About 150 young people yesterday gathered at the Masterton Town Hall for the two-day conference, which comprises youth councils from as far afield as Wairoa and Nelson.
"It is something that hasn't been run for a few years. It has been done in the past but it hadn't been specially a council conference and this is the first conference on this scale held in Wairarapa."
Topics chosen by the Wairarapa Youth Council to be covered include youth leadership and communication, community engagement and participation in civic and central governance.
Masterton Mayor Lyn Patterson opened proceedings.
Other speakers and workshop leaders include motivational speaker Billy Graham, the Christchurch Student Volunteer Army's Jason Pemberston, Liam and Cam from iHeartRadio, Wairarapa Labour candidate Kieran McAnulty, Porirua City deputy mayor Ana Coffey and Ministry of Youth Development national youth-participation adviser Michelle White.
