Chats with Oscar and Armin.
Sherein kicked off her term one workshops in Wellington last week and she got a chance to follow up with Oscar and Armin who attended, to see how they were doing and what they got out of the workshop.
Tell us a little about yourselves?
Hi I’m Oscar and I’m Armin. We go to Rongotai College, which is located in Kilbirnie Wellington, near the airport. We are in year 13 and we were looking for alternative ways to get into leadership within our school and saw the message about a SADD workshop and opportunity.
We both jumped at it. I (Oscar) was in a car that got hit by another car and was a bit of a shock to the system. From it it got me thinking I want to do my part in helping educate my peers and school around road safety and what we can do to help it.
I (Armin) am just passionate about road safety. I am about to get my restricted license and it is important in my opinion to minimise road deaths and errors.
What sort of issues around road safety do you see?
The biggest issue we see in our community around rongotai is moped safety, it’s the mode of transport that most rongotai college students that drive use, and it (unlike cars) offers little protection in case of a crash. Moped riders are also usually wearing little to no protective gear so when they get in a crash, the outcome won't be good. We want to work to promote moped safety such as wearing fully covered shoes, high vis, and taking lessons.
What attracted you to go to the SADD workshop initially?
I had been looking for ways to expand leadership skills - totally looks good on the CV but the topic is something I was interested in on how we make a difference and what SADD is really all about. And what I would need to know and do to get a group started at my school.
What were some of the key things you got out of the workshop?
We were given a tip by Sherein to look at involving students from lower levels in school in order to help reach more of the students, that will also come in handy in term 4 when seniors will be crazy busy preparing and setting exams. It was useful knowing the size of your group doesn’t matter as we can still do a lot of great things with only 5 members. We are already looking at doing something with Fire and Emergency so the hook up connections SADD has for community partners are pretty exciting. And we are only getting started.
How did your planning session go?
Was good, we broke it down into terms and chunks to help brainstorm out the different stages and things we might do. Was handy hearing a list of things that other students have done in the past and using it as a guide but we talked over how we can be as creative as we want which helps it stay fun and fresh. We sort of took what we learned about things that came up like Road Safety week and Safer September events to plan when we might run the activities and what the focus for them might be. We are still working on it to refine it.
What are you wanting to achieve with your SADD group?
For this term we are wanting to focus on getting the word out about SADD and recruit to form a solid group. And start making some custom posters to put up around our school. We want to set up a group that’ll outlast ourselves so we’re going to make a big effort to recruit the lower years alongside year 13s.
Random last question - Can you share with us the 5 items you would bring to a desert island?
Oscar: 10 tons of water, basketball, basketball hoop, largest tent money can buy, fishing nets.
Armin: Baked beans and a single banana, ping pong table, waterslide and a water bottle.
Big thanks to Oscar and Armin for sharing their Term One workshop experience and plans for starting a SADD group in Rongotai College!