Community Action on Youth and Drugs

Background | Objectives | Current projects | Useful resources

Current projects

Converse

Converse is an entirely original concept that has been developed with young people, youth providers and health promoters from Auckland city. A youth engagement tool, consisting of three phases; TALK, THINK and InterACT; Converse seeks to engage and develop young people using a youth participation approach.

TALK is the ACYC Urban Youth Summit and is primarily the catalyst activity for the process. THINK is about drawing the young people back to discuss common themes drawn from the summit and interACT is all about finding ways to work together to achieve common goals. Converse05 - The ACYC Urban Youth Summit was our first attempt and we focussed our dialogue around the youth drug and alcohol culture. Converse06 looked at redefining our perceptions of youth crime and was also implemented this year by Waitakere, North Shore and Manukau City.

The objective is to ensure youth have a voice on issues that affect them and to assist in building their capacity to be able to take leadership towards positive social responsibility and peer support around drugs and related issues.

Eastside

In 2004, Ka Mau Te Wero facilitated a youth forum at the Glen Innes Library as part of their wider community Visioning project. From this platform the young people identified several key areas for development, both for themselves and their wider community. They named and branded the overall process and The Eastside Youth Project was born. Auckland central CAYAD has taken a key leadership role in this process and our overarching vision is to engage and develop the young people of Glen Innes through reinforcing their sense of ownership and belonging within their community.

To date the young people have contributed to and implemented several projects including, but not limited to:

the Eastside Youth Festival
the Eastside Community Renewal Mural and
the Eastside Youth Christmas celebration.

CAYAD Working Group

The Community Action on Youth and Drugs (CAYAD) project facilitates a citywide intersectoral forum, popularly referred to as the working group on drug and drug related harm with the goal to increase citywide ownership, and augment the level of input and collaborative action in the city. It is facilitated and administered by CAYAD, but is responsible for determining its own activity. This is often independent of CAYAD. Likewise, CAYAD may undertake activity with key partners outside of the working group's activity. The group, initiated in June 2004, has now been running successfully for nearly two years and underpins much of our project activity to date.

UPFM - "Don't Drop and Drive"

UPFM is an underground dance music radio station that caters predominantly to the 18-34 year old age bracket. In 2003 they developed 'The UP FM Solar Series' a series of outdoor music events that cater for the whole family, and since then the event has gone from strength to strength; creating a safe social environment that can be (and often is) enjoyed by the whole family.

The UP FM Solar series this year was run with the aim of pushing the message 'Don't Drop and Drive'. With the proliferation of dance pill usage in New Zealand the lads from UP FM saw a lack of understanding regarding the dangers of driving under the influence of them and found that nothing was really happening at this level. CAYAD Auckland central supported them in this process by linking the Auckland City Traffic and Road Safety team with the event and we are now exploring opportunities to support UP FM in increasing the size and reach of the campaign.