Behind the scenes at Te Paepae o Aotea’s RSW event

Taranaki rangatahi are on fire this road safety week! With a bunch of events popping up all over the rohe. Bobbi thought she’d take the opportunity to follow Te Paepae o Aotea on their haerenga. They approached the day with meticulous organisation, collaboration and leadership. A big mihi to Ebony Kalin, Tamati Horo, and Bethany Gyde for organising this action packed day of road safety.

For this blog Bobbi caught up with Ebony to hear about how her SADD group found their experience running a road safety day during RSW 2023.

Bobbi: “What made you want to run a 'day-long' event for Road Safety Week (RSW)?”
Ebony: “I was inspired by the Wellington conference in the school holidays! I think all three of us were. It showed us how beneficial it is for our students! And to deliver some strong road safety messages. The conference gave us the tools to do this with confidence, especially with the support of our regional delivery lead.”

Bobbi: “How are you using the resources you worked on at our SADD conferences?”
Ebony: “During our road safety presentations today we used our resources created at the conference to deliver road safety messages. These were perfect! We were able to relate, and our peers were able to relate as well. As it’s a message for youth from youth, which I believe is so beneficial! Videos, powerpoints and activities were included in this presentation.”

Bobbi: What were your Highlights of the day?
Ebony: “I loved delivering the presentations! That’s me personally, public speaking is my jam! Seeing students engaging with the material is awesome as well. I also loved working with the senior students to deliver the fatal vision goggles, this was so much fun and a good laugh. While learning some valuable lessons about driver safety.”

Bobbi: “Any tips for other Kaitiaki o Ara groups wanting to run a day-long event?”
Ebony: “My one tip would be to make sure you have good student support in running your activities, with plenty of people helping you. We had an awesome team of students helping us today, which made the day run a lot smoother. It helps to spread the workload, having groups of students on different jobs/activities. Another tip for a day-long event is to make sure that you have activities that will engage the students and deliver a strong message, maybe have some lollies/sponsors prizes/music/house points/etc to bring the students in. This helps to increase participation.”

Bobbi: “It’s also Youth Week this week, why do you think it is so important to have young people take the lead in the road safety space?”
Ebony: “I believe youth engage more with content if it’s a student delivering it, if the message can relate to students, and the resources used are made by students. I feel youth teaching youth has a stronger impact, rather than an adult teaching the youth. At this age youth engage with their peers so much, and rely on each other for support/guidance and advice. So teaching youth valuable road safety messages is more likely for them to relay them to their peers/friends when they need to (e.g. stop drunk driving.. etc). This is why I believe it is important that youth lead the road safety space.”