Recently, Hato Hone St John Youth held their Christchurch District Youth Awards. We were lucky enough to have many students from Papanui High School receive awards at this prize giving

Hato Hone St John Youth is a program for children aged Year 1 to Year 13 and allows them to gain life saving first aid skills, long lasting friendships, unique experiences, leadership, and general life skills. 

The Grand Priors Award is the second highest award that cadets within Hato Hone St John Youth can achieve. Cadets need to put in a lot of mahi and dedication to achieve this award. Cadets need their level 2 first aid certificate, 100 hours of community service, and 10 badges. One badge takes on average a term to complete, meaning that many years of hard work go into achieving this award. The cadets who received their Grand Priors Award are: Katie Ward, Megan Bennetts, Jordyn Mason, Jay Sacramento, and Joshua Rae.

Hato Hone St John offers a range of leadership opportunities to cadets within the program. Throughout their journey in the youth program some cadets have the opportunity to attend a leadership development training. Cadets learn a range of leadership, communication, and teamwork skills. The first rank cadets can achieve is cadet corporal, secondly cadet sergeant, and lastly the highest rank someone under 18 can achieve, cadet leader. The cadets who were promoted are: Joshua Rae to Cadet Leader, Katelyn Papenfus to Cadet Sergeant, Georgia Bennetts to Cadet Sergeant, and Ella Keats to Cadet Sergeant.

Hato Hone St John Youth hand out service shields to cadets who do service in the community. They offer shields for 15, 25, 50, 100, 200, 500, 800, and 1000 hours of community service. The cadets not only obtained service through Hato Hone St John, but through contributing to our school and wider community. There was a range of different service shields achieved by our students, these are: Katie Ward, Megan Bennetts, Georgia Bennetts, Ella Keats, Arch Lyell, Katelyn Papenfus, Ruby-May Maddock, and Lara Nevett.

One of our students, Katie Ward, has had the privilege of being the 2024 Ōtautahi Christchurch District Cadet of the Year, known as DCOTY. The DCOTY’s role is to be the face and voice for the cadets within Christchurch District, the DCOTY represents and advocates for them. Katie gave a speech at the award ceremony about her time as DCOTY and the opportunities it has created for her.  

It was incredible to see so many Papanui High School students receive various awards and promotions. If this is something that you may be interested in please see https://youth.stjohn.org.nz/ for more information.