Youth Alive Trust

Youth Alive Trust is based at Grace Vineyard Beach Campus and has served thousands of children and young people in New Brighton since it was established in 1989. It was set up to provide “practical Christian service” to the young people of the community and its staff and many volunteers continues to do just that! Funded through different funding organisations, contracts and individual giving, it has grown and adapted to meet changing community needs and we currently work in 7 different areas;

1. Safer Streets Programmes. After school and evening programmes, ran by many volunteers and staff. The coolest clubs in town, offering crazy, cool activities, challenges, outings and team building exercises.
   • Cheeky Little Monkeys - Every Wednesday 3:00 – 4:45pm for Years 1 – 4.
   • WAVE - Every Monday 5:00 – 6:30pm for Years 5 & 6.
   • Rock Solid - Every Friday 4:30 – 6:00pm for Year 7 &
   • Sodium Youth Café - Every Friday night 7:30pm – 10pm with occasional live bands & dance parties & trips out.
   
    
2. School Programmes. Supporting the students in their classrooms, on lunchtimes, and through extra curricula activities. Our key schools in 2010 are:
   • Aranui High School – 24/7 Framework (Decile 2, role of 634. Interact with most young people – a weekly lunchtime drop-in, 1 on 1 mentoring, classroom support, assemblies, events, sports tournaments, coaching touch rugby & first 11 football teams, peer support + more).
   • Central New Brighton (Decile 2, role of 177. Interact with most kids – lunchtimes, assembly, special events, a weekly singing group, Football Coaching + more).
   • North New Brighton School (Decile 4, role 261. Dare To Be You programme with small groups of children).
   
    
3. Holiday Programmes. These fun filled programmes run 4 times a year for two different age categories, for the first week in every school holidays. These are CYF?s approved, OSCAR affiliated and we are contracted to the Ministry of Social Development. Many of the parents are able to claim the $15 per day cost from WINZ.
   • School Years 1 – 4. A maximum of 24 children.
   • School Years 5 – 8. A maximum of 24 children.
   
    

4. Camps. We take young people on overnight camps and weekends away throughout the year, such as Rock Solid Camp, Sodium’s BaseCamp, 40 Hour Famine Sleep-over and X-Tend Leadership Camp.

5. Library Support. We have a contract with Christchurch City Council to place youth leaders in New Brighton Library everyday after school, on weekends & school holidays. Their role is not only to look after the computer areas and help library staff with boundaries, which has led to the library to cancel their security contract. But to build positive relationships with regular youth at the Library, in order to provide a listening ear and feed them into other community activities, interacting with hundreds of children and young people throughout the year.

6. Community Events. We support Christchurch City Council events with our volunteers and resources such as the South & North Beach Blasts, The Thomson Park Skate Jam and other youth initiatives. We organise an annual Family Fun Night on 31st October yearly, which attracted over 600 people in 2009 and also host dance groups and bands.

7. Youth Leader Training and Support. Attracting, training and building-up volunteers to work in their community has been one of Youth Alive Trust’s biggest strengths. Seeing young people striving for responsibility, then becoming junior leaders, and then sometimes staff members is an awesome privilege. Volunteers are placed on different Safer Street Programmes and learn through practical service, their team meetings, training events throughout the year and from other more experienced youthworkers around them. We also host 1st and 2nd year Praxis students who are studying for a career in youthwork, offering them experience, support and a structure for their practical work. For much more information see their website.

Link: Youth Alive Website