Reflecting on an incredible 2025 conference season

Last month we had the absolute pleasure to host 2 incredible SADD conferences in Christchurch and Cambridge! There are so many highlights to reflect on, including celebrating our 40th, uplifting epic student mahi, seeing friendships flourish and making waves in youth road safety advocacy! Read on to hear more about these events and what’s next on the 2025 calendar.

During the April school holidays, SADD hosted two conferences in Christchurch and Cambridge, bringing together secondary students from across Aotearoa to explore road safety, build leadership skills, and connect with like-minded peers.

From hands-on challenges to campaign development workshops, students had plenty of opportunities to step up, share ideas, and have some fun along the way.

Here are just some of the highlights:

Group Challenge:
A key part of the programme was the group challenge where student teams were tasked with creating a campaign that used repetition and reinforcement to deliver a clear road safety message. The challenge encouraged strategic thinking, teamwork, and creativity — and led to some impressive campaign concepts.

Fun with Mystery Envelopes
Teams also navigated a series of mystery envelopes that kept things interesting (and, for some, slightly chaotic!). Some envelopes helped teams secure their choice of road safety topic for the challenge, while other groups met the fate of the envelopes and were challenged with burpees! This element of conference was a fun way to explore some healthy risk taking and get teams working on their communication, negotiation and teamwork skills.

Guest Speakers
We were pleased to host Dawn and Debbie from NZTA who ran informative and interactive Kahoot quizzes about the DRIVE programme. Students got the chance to test their knowledge and learn more about this awesome resource.

80s-Themed Quiz Night
To round out a busy second day, we brought back the retro vibes with an 80s-themed quiz night. Costumes, music, snacks and a pair of kazoos made for a fun evening!

Connection + Collaboration
Throughout the conferences, students worked in teams, made new friends, and developed some inspiring road safety campaign ideas. It was great to see students from different regions supporting each other and building a strong sense of community.

What’s Next?

Now the real mahi begins. We’ll be working hard to bring some of these campaign ideas to life so they can be used in in schools and communities across the country — so keep an eye out on our website over the coming months.

We're also gearing up for Road Safety Week next week, with lots of opportunities for students to get involved and put their leadership into action.

Our Delivery Team is also preparing for a new Term 2 workshop series, where they’ll be heading out to regions across Aotearoa to help students build on what they’ve started and strengthen their local SADD groups.

We’re also recruiting now for our Leadership Programme — so if you're ready to take the next step, this is your moment!

Big thanks to all of the students who took time out of their holidays to come along to our conferences and give it their all; to our supportive partners who helped students to attend and/or came along to support their presentations; and to our amazing SADD team who have worked so hard to get these events off the ground. Teamwork makes the dream work!