ADRA New Zealand

Choice 1 provides a fully structured programme, working with a group of young people to ultimately reach the goal of full time employment or taking part in a programme of continued education.

The programme runs over 20 weeks and has an intake in January and July.

This programme provides young people with a range of group activities that offer them different alternatives in life.

The aim of the programme is to provide young people with the opportunity to experience emotional and physical safety, healthy relationships, self identity, a connection to both their culture and community, as well as developing life skills. Also we aim to address some of the social issues that have caused them their existing problems.

This initiative has been developed as a method of taking family groups rated as “at risk” and by working on the changing of attitudes of negativity and increasing the positive patterns of basic life skills these family units have been able to reconnect with the accepted social behavior of New Zealand communities.

The project also addresses the issues of divorce, drug and solvent abuse, less than adequate parenting skills and problems of mental health.
For example:
Parenting programs are implemented to reduce the problems of adverse behavior, parental stress while at the same time increase the awareness of self confidence and issues of self worth.

Divorce care programs allow the recipients to build their communication skills while allowing the parties to come into an understanding that lets them move forward in their new lives.

Building of a strong mentoring support base within this community has gone a long way in improving parenting and child health factors and has demonstrated an increase in general mental awareness and well being.

Those with substance abuse issues are counseled, while a strong mentorship programme guides them to set new goals, of resilience development ,and at the same time building a sense of a strong Self-Worth that would assist them to make better choices in life.

Storm Company is a youth initiative of the South Pacific Division of the Seventh Day Adventist Church organized under the banner of ADRA Mission statement. (ADRA = $2,000 per Storm Co)

The StormCo mission is to send teams of trained young people to work for, learn from, and encourage individual communities; sharing God’s love by building bridges to all peoples through an adventure in service to others. There are Five foundations that make up the philosophy of Storm Co: No Agenda, No Expectations, No Walls, No Limits, No Fear.

Community Service
To work without pay or any other ‘ulterior’ motive especially when that work is highly visible within the local environment. This makes for a powerful statement to any community. After continuous years of team visits a lasting relationship is established that may become a far reaching tool for future evangelism.

Cultural Exchange
When Storm Co teams began visiting rural towns, the immediate response from the community was overwhelmingly positive especially seeing team members interact to break down cultural barriers.
The fact that the Storm Co team was in town and interested in the local community gave the locals a chance to proudly present their own cultural heritage.

Children/Youth Programs
Storm Co teams often run their trips during school vacation time. In many isolated New Zealand communities, this is a time when they put together vacation care programs for the children and youth of the town thus providing relief and revitalization to family units.

Role Model
Community leaders often smile with the pleasure of seeing a Storm Co team at work. They comment on the positive example that the team sets for the local youth. Team members are encouraged to interact with the local youth, and often use and train locals as working team members in a variety of ways.
By design, a Storm Co team fosters youth leadership and by necessity the team must be well organized and disciplined

Care and Concern
People will often ask Storm Co team members, ‘Why are you doing this? What do you want from us?’ The answer may take different forms, but always has a common theme, ‘We come to serve, and we want nothing in return’.

A Wellness Centre, BALANCE that is open 5 hours a day; 5 days a week, serving the needs of the local community based on the holistic approach, caring for spirit, soul and body.
The Centre provides support to people in need within the local community.
Using an holistic approach, we will provide services that would include Food/Clothes bank, counseling for those in need of emotional support, mental health treatment and wellness problems.

The Centre offers family support in the areas of working with dysfunction while at the same time providing them with counseling, education.
The Centre runs regular workshops targeting problems related to mental health and decreasing stigma, development of healthy relationships, counseling issues of grief and forgiveness.
A complete health package is provided with the inclusion of an exercise programme, fitness training and family fun activities.

Wellness Centre, BALANCE is located in Invercargill with a population of around 55,000 and in Southland with a population of around 72,000.
By providing these services we hope to reach out to at least 1000 people per year who would benefit from any of these programmes.

The refocus service works with youth who are classified as “At Risk” and provides them with individualized support.

This support includes working with the individual as well as their family to support the young person as they transition towards the goal of independence.
We also work with any agencies and organisations that are currently involved with the young person to address some of the risk factors that may effect them.
The objectives of the service are to identify key factors preventing the young person from fully participating within society.

These may include factors such as mental health, substance abuse, issues with the their current families/care givers, friends, education etc.
We aim to develop an individualized plan that works through some of these issues for the young person so that they are able to live independently, in a healthy and safe manner.

Throughout New Zealand ADRA has found that an important tool in the establishment of successful parenting is a programme designed to educate and support families in the methods necessary to provide the best way to engender a safe and lasting family unit.

These services include:
Hosting large scale seminar type presentations by respected and reputable Parenting groups i.e Parents Inc, Family Life.

Running frequent small Parenting support groups for parents of all ages.

Providing resources of current parenting books, DVD and Videos

Publishing monthly Parental publications with helpful hints, current social issues and helpful information concerning training events and family focused initiatives hosted in the local community

Throughout NZ, The Seventh Day Adventist Churches regularly come across people who are struggling to achieve the basic needs of providing wholesome and healthy food for their family.

ADRA, in conjunction with The Sanitarium Healthfood Company, provide support to these churches by way of Healthy Breakfast Cereals, dietary advice and a full range of healthy living recipes.

The churches are able to add to these items with products sourced from their own individual resources and together with ADRA input these parcels have proved to be a life saver for those most in need.

The New Start Gardens is an employment training programme where vegetables and plants are grown on an eight hectare property in New Plymouth. The produce grown is used by a community soup kitchen in the disadvantaged Area of Marfell with the surplus produce made available to the community to buy. The programme is designed to give unemployed youth the work skills, life skills and training to enable them to enter the workforce. We provide Horticulture training and employment in the gardens.

Watch a movie on the New Plymouth New Start Gardens 2007