15-05-2025
Funds needed to continue key project
Primary school pupils are working with male mentors to reinvent pallets in cool DIY projects. PHOTOS: SUPPLIED
A new trailer is needed for a programme visiting Central Otago schools to teach boys about DIY and self-esteem in the process.
The trailer that carries tools to six primary schools in and around Alexandra as part of Boys' Brigade's Edge Workshops needs replacing.
The programme has been running in the area for five years and facilitator Warwick Tomlinson said the trailer in use was "starting to die", gather "rust spots" and cost the organisation money.
The Boys' Brigade is gathering funds for a new trailer for the organisation's Edge programme that visits primary schools in Alexandra, Clyde, Omakau, Poolburn and Roxburgh.
On cold, wet days, the trailer becomes a welcome makeshift classroom for at-risk young people often struggling to engage with their school work, Mr Tomlinson said.
The programme accommodates six pupils each term at each school, rolling up once a fortnight with volunteer mentors and one paid co-ordinator willing to teach the children how to turn used wooden pallets into new gadgets or toys.
At the end of April, after hearing from Mr Tomlinson, the Vincent Community Board unanimously approved a grant of $5000 to Boys' Brigade New Zealand for a new trailer.
But almost four times that amount is needed to get the project across the line.
Boys' Brigade national director Mike Brewer described the programme, which has been running for nearly 15 years in New Zealand, as "hugely successful".
"We try and target boys who are struggling or not doing well in the education system and really help them over a term to give them a bit of self-esteem and work on their values and behaviours to try and get them integrated back into some good classwork," he said.
The young people were taught how to use some basic tools as they completed small building projects that have included wooden race cars, mobile phone charging stations and candlesticks.
Mr Brewer said the organisation relied on grants and donations to ensure its programmes gained the "traction" needed to make a difference in their communities.
Boys' Brigade's unique philosophy of having "men teaching boys" was special, he said.
"In some of these guys' lives, they may not have a father figure or a male role model ... So [our programmes] can fulfil that function well ...We really do find that the boys respond well to having an older guy working with them."
