Blake Inspire Programme

By OBHS/Javara Clark | Posted: Tuesday July 18, 2023

During the school holidays Year 12 student Javara Clark attended the Blake Inspire Programme.

Blake Inspire is a young leadership programme funded by the Sir Peter Blake Trust. It has a focus on the environment and Matauranga Maori. 

I was fortunate enough to be chosen as a delegate to go on this trip and I flew up to Auckland to attend. The group consisted of 34 other delegates from areas around the country. The days consisted of seminars with corporate groups and different non government organisations. 

Each day was spent with the goal of exposing us to as many experiences as they possibly could. We were shipped off to different islands and did varying forms of research with the Department of Conservation and Ministry of the Environment. It was an amazing experience and opportunity seeing different reserves, and being taught concepts such as the shifting baseline which gave us new ideas.

Our goal from this trip was to come back with a whole new set of skills to apply to our action plans; the action plans were goals we could set out to complete within our school and community. My action plan consists of working with Beach Education Surf Life Saving New Zealand to try and reach as many primary school students over the upcoming summers on the importance of the Taonga in our oceans and what actions we can take to help protect and restore it.

An awesome opportunity to look into for next year if you have a passion for the environment and want to develop leadership skills.

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