A summer holiday to remember

Photo: NEIL DUDDY

HOLIDAY HIJINKS: Shane Cameron gives Jarrod Chiplin, left, and Tonga Tongotongo some boxing tips.

A group of lucky south Auckland kids got to spend their summer holidays hanging out with Warriors, All Blacks and even a boxing champion.

The Youth Pride project is a free holiday programme for Manukau 11 to 17-year-olds.

Held at six south Auckland locations the project involved children in workshops, mentoring sessions and activities with "ambassadors" including Stacey Jones, Logan Swann, Monty Betham, Shane Cameron Jerome Kaino, Isaia Toeava, Joe Rokocoko and Anthony Tuitavake.

The holiday programme ran at the end of the school holidays in January and will run again in April.

The Youth Pride project is part of the Social Development Ministry's Break-Away Package, which provides holiday programmes for children who don't normally have access to them.

Youth Pride director and former Warriors player Tea Ropati says the aim is for the kids to have fun, be challenged and learn about leadership, teamwork and manners.

All of the activities are based on activities Mr Ropati would have liked to have done when he was younger and on the lessons he learned from playing professional sport.

He grew up in Otahuhu and says of all the com-
munity work he's done
over the years this latest role has been the most "perfect".

"It's the perfect opportunity to provide something for the communities out here."

Mr Ropati says the experience has been rewarding and he's had positive feedback from the parents and their children.

The programme's popularity is evident in the numbers turning out - at the Mangere programme, up to 90 children attended each day.

Fourteen-year-old Jarrod Chiplin says going to the programme was a "cool way to spend the holidays".

Without it, he says he would have spent his summer days "doing nothing".

And that's something Mr Ropati can relate to.

"I just wish there was a holiday programme like this when we were all kids," he says.

- © Fairfax NZ News