Stars Peer Mentors from Linwood College participated in activities for NZ Youth Week in May. The theme was “E korero ana mātou. E whakarongo ana koutou? We’re speaking. Are you listening?”

With the country being in rahui during that time, the focus was on empowering our rangatahi to express their experiences of the pandemic using online platforms. Our Stars Peer Mentors did this by creating video blogs, writing letters to their future selves, and capturing their experience through art and photography. Students were encouraged to be open and honest about their experiences and share with the world how they were feeling and what they were thinking. Their creations were featured on the Graeme Dingle Foundation Canterbury Facebook page, with some images used in a national campaign.

On returning to school after lockdown, our Stars Peer Mentors were excited to be back running the Stars sessions with Year 9s. As they started with a new house group (Karaka), they took the opportunity for the group to get to know each other, establish their group agreement and learn more about each other’s similarities and differences. They were given the additional responsibility of coming up with their own games and activities to lead. Some peer mentors were able to share games and songs from their own culture with the junior students.

Stars Peer Mentor Profile - Justin Howland, Year 12

Justin became a Stars Peer Mentor because he wanted to be able to help the Year 9s with whatever they needed. He said that during lockdown he realised it was important to stay connected with others. Using social media and online gaming with friends helped, as well as staying active and keeping up with school work. Justin has been able to bring this experience into his peer mentoring to support year 9s to make connections.

Stars Peer Mentor Profile – Dipal Narayan, Year 12

Dipal shared a video message during the lockdown about how it impacted her. She said that as someone who is very social, it was hard to be stuck at home and, initially, she shut down. After a few weeks, Dipal realised that she had to make a change and decided to “get back into the game”. Dipal said that being involved in Stars helped keep her going and remembering why she became a peer mentor gave her motivation.