Over May and June Mayors Taskforce for Jobs (MTFJ), in partnership with Mackenzie District Council and Twizel Promotions and Development Association ran their first employability program with Year 10 students (M4) at Twizel Area School.
This has been based around the seven fundamental employability attributes. Teamwork, positive thinking, resilience, willingness to learn, communication, self-management and thinking skills.
These sessions have been focused on practical learning exercises followed by excursions out of the classroom to practice practical skills.
While all the weeks were highly enjoyed and M4 should be commended for their participation and engagement three activities stood out as highlights:
Top Hut Bar and Bistro
The Top Hut Bar and Bistro allowed us to run a work simulation. As part of these we split into three groups and rotated between three stations, Food preparation, making a hot chocolate on the coffee machine and role-playing customer service in the restaurant.
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Twizel OP Shop
An excursion to the OP Shop where on entry they were handed a piece of paper each with an occupation and given five minutes to shop for an item or outfit relating to the occupation. Once back in the classroom the students then speed dated each other to guess the occupation and split off into pairs to practice Interview techniques.
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Kiwi Tax, Mackenzie Four Square and Foodbank
Nathan from Kiwi Tax explained the all-important questions ‘like what even is Kiwi Saver?’. The students then looked at three budgets relating to different common incomes. A student allowance with a part time job, full time employee on minimum wage and on an average annual wage. After this we gave them a budget of $8 each and went over to Mackenzie Four Square with the task being to create a lunch. We were very impressed with the creativity of the students, entire meals were created and purchased with a few taking the initiative to combine their budgets. We then took all the food over and donated it to the Community Food Bank. A lot of our students didn’t know about this, and we reiterated the importance of the Food Bank especially in the current economic climate.
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The final morning was spent building CV’s, so all the students have left the programme with a workable CV document and the knowledge of employability and its importance in the work force. We hope the Rangitahi enjoyed the program and learned some valuable skills to carry them forwards in education and the workforce.
Special thanks to these individuals and businesses that donated their time and resources to making this possible. Firstly, Rachel Dacombe who was of invaluable support throughout the entire process of building the program, Top Hut Bar and Bistro (Darrin, Tracey, Phil, John, Dani and Lana), Twizel OP shop (Liz and Belinda), Kiwi Tax (Nathan Grant) Vicky Hayes (Community Care Centre), and Nick Buddajaroen.
Thank you to the Twizel Area School for seeing the value in these sessions and making the time and space available for these to happen.
Hannah Beer
MTFJ Coordinator, Mackenzie District.
