Empowering Student Leaders- Youth Week 2023's Leadership Workshop by Ko Taku Reo Deaf Education NZ
Empowering Student Leaders: Youth Week 2023's Leadership Workshop
Daniel Greenwood - Deputy Head of Enrolled School — June 19, 2023
In Term 2, Week 4, we celebrated Youth Week immediately after NZSL Week. We delivered a leadership workshop for selected senior students in Year 11+ in Christchurch and Auckland, with about 12 students in each workshop. The theme of 2023's Youth Week was Leaders of Tomorrow, Leaders of Today! We successfully received a grant from Ara Taiohi to provide these workshops; thank you! Thank you to the Deaf Clubs in Christchurch and Auckland for using their venues, which are valuable Deaf spaces.
The purpose of this workshop was to allow the students to unpack leadership theories and understand effective communication features by putting them into practice through a series of activities. These also had links to the PE & Health Curriculum, which we intend to expand on by providing more workshops in the future. At the start of the workshop, we asked what three things they wanted to work on for themselves and reflected on this at the end of the day.
Through these activities, the students had to solve problems and have effective teamwork, communication, and leadership to complete the activities. Some activities included Memory, Back-to-Back drawing, navigating a minefield, and building a strong bridge.
It was wonderful to see them all get into it and push themselves. I have since had feedback from some staff that some students have put their learnings into practice back at the provisions.
Auckland Deaf Society's club manager Julie-Anne Taylor briefly talked to the Auckland group about ADS' goal for Deaf Youth.
At the end of the workshop, we asked them to reflect on the day and share about a leader they admire and why. Check out the videos and photos, including one signing the Youth Week theme.
Along with thanking Ara Taiohi and the Deaf Clubs - a big thank you to the Ko Taku Reo staff who helped to make this event happen by encouraging students to come, and by transporting them to and from the workshops, and for everyone's involvement in the day - ka pai!
