Ever since learning about the Laidlaw Programme and its Leadership-in-Action (LiA) component, I have been determined to volunteer with a community-focused organisation that aligns with my background, values, and future aspirations, building on my skills from the Laidlaw research project and seeking to actively make a difference in a field I am incredibly passionate about.

This week, starting Monday the 11th of May, marked the beginning of my LiA project with Youth Arts New Zealand (YANZ) in Auckland. YANZ is the leading charity in New Zealand dedicated to empowering and nurturing the creative talents of the youth through tackling structural barriers that prohibit their creative practice from progressing into sustainable opportunities. 

My project with YANZ seeks to equip, activate, and advocate for young creatives by creating accessible, youth-informed resources and storytelling content that reflect their successes and needs and elevate the visibility and influence of YANZ’s work. Across my various LiA goals, I aim to amplify youth creative voices by documenting and sharing the experiences, stories, and aspirations of rangatahi involved in YANZ programmes and events. This will include supporting accessible creative pathways by helping communicate the opportunities YANZ offers young people, contributing to community-led engagement by supporting events and finally, leaving behind useful resources that help YANZ strengthen its storytelling around youth creativity in Auckland.

The first week of my LiA was dedicated to orientation and onboarding. I achieved several tangible outcomes, including getting familiar with the contexts YANZ works within, making a plan for the upcoming weeks and starting to work on some public-facing resources for the future events. I also began settling into the working environment, getting to know the YANZ amazing team and developing a better understanding of Auckland as the local context for the project. The team and I attended an Emerging Artist Showcase organised by one of YANZ’s partner organisations, where several young creatives performed their music. This was incredibly useful for seeing what different venues and event systems are like across Auckland; it helped me understand the broader ecosystem YANZ operates in and created a clear structure for the rest of my placement, establishing how my contribution could support YANZ’s communications, storytelling, and impact documentation.

There have been some challenges, too, including having to adapt to YANZ’s internal systems quickly and learning and applying a range of different voices YANZ uses in their various types of external communications. I also had to adapt to New Zealand’s culture and to Te Ao Māori terms used in everyday organisational language.

Immersing myself in a new environment on the other side of the world has felt relatively natural, as I am used to moving between different countries, continents, and cultural contexts. Nevertheless, I wanted to take this moment to express how incredibly grateful I am to the Laidlaw Foundation for the generous opportunity to be here in New Zealand executing my passions. I am so thankful for the opportunity to learn from such an inspiring organisation and to contribute to the crucial work YANZ does to develop young people through creative pathways using an interconnected suite of arts programming, community relationships, and resources.

I am deeply passionate about using storytelling to spotlight hidden voices and support youth-led creative empowerment, so I feel incredibly excited to be part of this endeavour and to see where the next five weeks of working with YANZ on this initiative will take me.