Rotorua Girls’ High School students cap off Cactus programme with endurance event

RGHS students (from left) Shekinah King-Jones, Aaliyah Schuster, Joy Tafuna, Lexi Brierley, Royale Kapene and Aatuahua-Jean Karauti-Fox with firefighter Emma Gibb at the Cactus Longest Day event. Photo / Annabel Reid

Severe weather warnings in Rotorua didn’t stop a group of high school students from completing a nine-hour endurance event in which they hauled a 12-tonne fire truck nearly a kilometre.

The event was the final test in the Combined Adolescent Challenge Training Unit and Support (Cactus) programme undertaken by Year 11 and 12 students from Rotorua Girls’ High School.

The nine-week Cactus programme had returned to the city after a five-year hiatus.

The challenge finished on June 27 with the endurance event dubbed the Longest Day. It simulated a civil defence emergency.

The “military-style” programme was a partnership between police and the school, and was supported by the Phillip Verry Charitable Foundation (Rotary), which contributed $30,000.

The programme was designed to build strength and resilience in the students while giving them exposure to future career paths. It began with 30 students, selected for their leadership potential.

Constable David Massey, in charge of public safety for Taupō police, was the Cactus lead trainer and co-ordinator and said students trained three mornings a week following a disciplined structure. They responded to instructors with “staff” and completed group penalties if rules were broken.

Massey said that early in the programme, students had been trying to come up with “all the excuses” to get out of tasks.

By the end, “they were waking their parents up to make sure they didn’t miss it”.

RGHS students at the Fire and Emergency NZ National Training Centre in Rotorua for Cactus. Photo / Annabel Reid

One student had shaved five minutes off her run time and another completed 1000 sit-ups in one go.

The Longest Day began at 6am with a 13.5km run. Later challenges included team-building tasks, carrying timber poles into town, and a fire simulation in the “hot house” – a confined, blacked-out space heated to 65C set up in the Fire and Emergency National Training Centre in Rotorua.

Inside, students were kitted out and tasked with navigating an obstacle course by rope.

 

Massey said some came out in tears, others were beaming “with the biggest smiles of achievement you’ve ever seen”.

Rotorua Girls’ student Jayda Gibbons said the group hadn’t known about the hot house beforehand.

“It was really fun,” she said. “But it got a little scary when it was getting too hot.”

RGHS student Jayda Gibbons says the stint at the Fire and Emergency training Centre in Rotorua was fun but a little scary. Photo / Annabel Reid

Classmate Shekinah King-Jones said eight weeks ago she couldn’t run 1km but she did the full 13.5km on the final day.

If someone was struggling, the other girls would help them keep running, she said.

“There was a lot of encouragement.”

Shekinah King-Jones says she and her fellow students on the Cactus course are now like a little family. Photo / Annabel Reid

 

The 15-year-old said they didn’t know each other beforehand but the group was now like a little family.

The school’s principal, Sarah Davis, said that outcome was exactly what she had hoped for.

She said the girls weren’t naturally connected but had formed real bonds.

Davis said their next step was to find ways to maintain those connections.

Annabel Reid is a multimedia journalist for the Bay of Plenty Times and Rotorua Daily Post, based in Rotorua. Originally from Hawke’s Bay, she has a Bachelor of Communications from the University of Canterbury.