Student success

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Our Head Student Carmen Holdaway, was a keynote speaker at the National Women in Public Sector Summit 2020, where she presented her perspective on youth leadership in an online forum.

Earlier in the year, Carmen successfully competed for NZ at the international St John Youth competitions in South Africa and while developing her oral presentation became very interested in health/mental health issues facing different countries. 

At the same time, together with some of the Kenyan competitors, she co-founded a non-profit organisation which aims to connect young people from Kenya and New Zealand, via an entreprenurial scholarship from CreativeHQ. 

During the Covid lockdown she took the opportunity to apply for, and was accepted onto several different leadership courses, receiving mentoring from influential people in the health sector. 

She subsequently won a national essay competition through GirlBoss, with a prize which included a visit to the Justice Precinct in Christchurch and further mentoring. 

Her essay has been circulated around the associated agencies and this is where she was picked up by the Government Womens Network and asked to present at the summit.