The White Elephant Trust

My name’s Dean Harliwich, I’m one of the trustees from the White Elephant Trust that was lucky enough to host the 2009 Youth Conference just past. If you’re too busy to read this just check out the line starting with “THE IMPORTANT BIT”, that’s good stuff. If you have a couple of minutes, please read on!

Firstly, thank you all for attending! I was lucky enough to be able to escape from work and drop in just before Jacinda showed up for her chat, and it was amazing to see the depth of consideration that went in to some of the topics you guys came up with. Some of you are no doubt looking forward to seeing the results of the conference – I can tell you that the write-up is on the go at the moment, and looks pretty exciting so far.

I’ll keep this short, because I know you all have things to do, so check it out:

One of the things that came up in the forum (as you know) was getting the word from youth to government, and back the other way.

I had a chat with Jacinda, and she’s got nothing but support for the development of some way of getting youth concerns to parliament, and parliament’s voice back the other way. Even better, she’s got a few other MPs who are keen to give their support to the same thing. Brendan Burns for one, is keen to be involved, and has his own little cohort of MPs who might be keen.

THE IMPORTANT BIT: The reason this is important is this: If we think there is a need for some kind of communication between youth and parliament, and that the current means of communication doesn’t make the grade, we’re the ones with the power to change that. I’m writing here to invite you to be a part of that change. In a nutshell, lets put our heads together at the end of the month and develop a way to empower youth to bring about change. We have the support of a range of MPs here, we definitely have the support of White Elephant, and we have an opportunity to contribute something that might change the way “youth” (and I include myself in that stereotype, is 21 too old to be cool?) interact with the rest of society.

That’s it in a nutshell. If you’re keen, please come along, bring anyone you like. Even if you don’t think you have anything to contribute and are just interested to see what it’s about, come and check it out. If nothing else it will be a good chance to fill up on soft drink and biscuits

Details for the venue are below, I look forward to meeting all of you properly!
dean[at]we.org.nz
027 2141767

ADDRESS:
White Elephant Trust
L1/1 Bedford Row – Find Dick Smith on Manchester St and you’ll find Bedford Row. We’re just above Dick Smiths, follow the White Elephants

WHEN:
5:00pm Thursday 25th of June. This can be adjusted if people can’t make it, but it’s a start. We’ll figure something out that works for everyone once we know who’s involved!