Duke of Edinburgh award boost

They might have to climb a few mountains to gain their Duke of Edinburgh’s Hillary Award, but young people from Rodney won’t have to travel far to find out how to get involved.

A new Open Award drop-in centre opens at the Hibiscus Coast Youth Centre in Orewa this October.

The centre will have staff available for a few hours once a month to help people aged 14 to 25 get involved or keep going with the scheme.

It will mainly cater for young people who started the programme at school but left before they completed it, and need someone to touch base with each month.

"A lot of young people drop out because they can’t keep themselves motivated and don’t have enough support," says the award’s Auckland support co-ordinator Kathryn Wood.

She hopes the Open Award centre will encourage more young people to stay in the programme until they have completed all the levels from bronze to gold.

The award’s name was recently changed from The Young New Zealanders’ Challenge of The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award to The Duke of Edinburgh’s Hillary Award, in memory of the late Sir Edmund Hillary.

Hillary Award candidates set themselves goals in skill, physical recreation, community service and expeditions.

A certain number of hours must be completed to gain each award.

- Debra Hunt is an AUT journalism student