Rangatahi-led billboard campaign in Pōneke
Each quarter, SADD connects with Wellington City Council’s Emily and Riley to discuss ways to strengthen our mahi together and share any updates. During one of these hui, Emily suggested using some of the posters developed from Conference on billboards around the city. While there wasn’t anything fitting for Pōneke, this sparked an exciting new idea to invite local rangatahi to help design it. Rather than developing something for young people, we wanted to build something with them. This idea also fit in well with the goal of increasing engagement for the Wellington region.
Together with WCC, we created a youth call-out encouraging students to step up as leaders through Kaitiaki o Ara / SADD. The goal was to think critically about road safety issues that affect young people most such as distracted driving, peer pressure… and co-design messaging for a Wellington-based campaign. Using resources from our SADD Conference, basic design tools, and NZTA’s billboard guidelines, we ran a creative three-hour workshop to get things started.
Nine students from across five Wellington high schools joined, bringing enthusiasm, ideas, and strong leadership. They developed three standout concepts: “Push the brakes, not a race” (speed), “Weaving? Roads aren’t parks” (mopeds/e-scooters), and the winning theme, “Trust your wayfinding, not peers.”(peer pressure) A handful of follow-up workshops at Rongotai College and Wellington East Girls refined the idea further, with students exploring visuals and slogans like “Your life, your call, you steer.” WCC and SADD staff were able to step back with the 9 students leading their own hui. These students had an amazing ability to adapt and problem solve throughout this 5 month project.
The collaboration with WCC has shown how powerful it is when local government, educators, and young people work together. This project has not only highlighted youth leadership but created space for authentic voices to shape safer, more relatable messages for Wellington’s roads. As a by-product of this project the Wellington region has increased to 4 new schools involved with our kaupapa and we can’t wait to see the progress with these groups moving into 2026.
Some feedback from the students…
“I enjoyed the collaboration with a range of different schools, which brought a range of ideas and perspectives.”
“It has brought my understanding of what it means to be in a team to another new level, I've learnt just how influential teamwork is, especially when discussing important world problems like dangerous driving.”
A big mihi to everyone who contributed to this project especially the road safety team at WCC as well as all students who volunteered their time to make our roads a safer place. Keep up the awesome mahi team!
Lewis Brown, Marcus Young - Rongotai College
Jayda Ali - Wellington Girls
Owen Fan, Varun Pangam, Shudhit Rakshit - Wellington College
Izabella Bell, Kamaia Harrison, Charlie Bradley, Zariya Khan - Wellington East Girls College