Worknow_Aotearoa_NZ

Connecting Young People with Work

With John Keys announcing a $152 million package to create new work, education and training opportunities for unemployed young people we’re feeling even more confident that our vision around helping the youngest working age generation transition into work will find support on many levels. Well, we hope that it does but at the very least we’re reassured to learn that our mission aligns with the concern of our current Prime Minister who said yesterday:-

I am concerned for our young people.Those aged 18-24 are the fastest growing age group on the Unemployment Benefit, representing a third of all those who receive it.

The number of young people who wanted a job but couldn’t get one has more than quadrupled in the past year, leaping from less than 4000 in June 2008 to nearly 17,000 by June this year.

My concern is that for a young person starting out in their working life, a long period of unemployment could be very damaging. Source

Quid Pro Quo: Using Time Trade to Encourage Young People to Volunteer

When we looked at solving problems relating to work it was quickly evident that young people are the demographic most in need of solutions. So we got together to identify ways we could help them transition from study to work.

Lacking the work experience needed to gain value from our contractors’ marketplace we focused instead on ways that we could help them build the necessary work expereince, skills and references.

By incorporating unpaid work into our formula and encourage volunteering through the concept of Time Trade, we identified ways to:-

1) provide a measure of value and recognition for the development of a peer mentoring scheme, using time credits.

Enlisting alumni to mentor upcoming graduates about work life and career paths. Those graduates, in turn, trade their time to perhaps tutor fellow students who in turn again volunteer in their community and build valuable work skills.

2) provide incentive and reward to encourage more young people to volunteer, using time credits.

We believe volunteer work develops a service orientated work ethic and skills that assist the study to work transition. Some of the skills we know volunteers can develop include:-

• Leadership & team building skills
• Relationship building skills
• Communication skills
• Negotiation skills
• Creative thinking skills
• Organisation & time management skills

As Social Development and Employment Minister Paula Bennett points out encouraging Gen Y to become involved in our communities creates win-win situations. Her comments about the Community Max Scheme could as easily apply to Worknow:-

“This is all about providing opportunities – we see this as a very positive approach to addressing youth unemployment while helping fund useful community projects… I believe this is a win-win situation.”

Where we differ is that we intend the growth of youth volunteers to be a permanent fixture of tomorrows communities hence the development of out Time Trade platform.