Youth Voice

The Hive Deep Dive with Decision-Makers: Insights & Recommendations Report

The Hive All-Stars (13 young people aged 16-24 years representing the cohorts from the first three seasons or years of The Hive) and Curative NZ undertook a series of insights-gathering activities in late 2023. These included an online survey and a series of in-person workshops targeting public servants, and in-depth interviews with senior public service leaders. The aim of the insights-gathering activities was to:

• understand the barriers that decision-makers in the public sector experience around youth engagement
• explore opportunities to address barriers and see youth voice uplifted and embedded in policy development and decision-making.

This resulting report is named The Hive Deep Dive with Decision-Makers: Insights & Recommendations (the Report). The information contained within the Report has been distilled  into a three-page document (A3 Summary – The Hive Deep Dive), featuring an overview of the insights-gathering exercises, and a summary of opportunities and recommendations. Additionally, Curative NZ has created a one-page overview (A3 Summary – The Hive) of The Hive and its mahi.

One of the recommendations from the Report was the production of a quarterly e-newsletter for The Hive to:

• explore issues of concern to young people
• offer insights from The Hive engagements
• provide examples of good youth engagement practice
• profile opportunities for collaboration.

You can subscribe to the e-newsletter here.

The Hive is a youth voice initiative that has been funded by MYD and delivered by Curative NZ since 2019. The purpose of The Hive is to facilitate a two-way communication channel between young people and government, including demystifying political processes. It is an action in the Government’s Youth Plan: Voice, Leadership, Action.

Youth Advisory Group - Members Announced

Appointments MYD's Youth Advisory Group (YAG) have now been announced!

This next iteration of MYD’s YAG is made up of seven MYD YAG 2022-2023 alumni – young people who were part of MYD’s YAG from 2022 to 2023.

The YAG will be providing advice on specific projects that will help to embed youth voice and leadership in government and community decision-making and action, particularly on the issues young people care about most. 

The YAG’s primary focus will be on supporting the implementation of the initial six actions under the refreshed Youth Plan: Voice, Leadership, Action and helping to identify and implement potential new actions for inclusion under the Youth Plan’s Rolling Suite of Actions.

Read on for more information on who the MYD’s YAG members are:

Full Name	Age	Location
Veilomani (Mani) Tafa	22	Auckland
Madiha Ali	24	Hamilton
Kate Morris	22	Wellington
Ashleigh Putt-Fallows	19	Wellington
Aidan Donoghue	19	Wellington
Silas Zhang	20	Christchurch
Piper Pengelly	20	Christchurch

‘Connect & Kōrero – Innovating to amplify refugee and ethnic migrant youth voice in Aotearoa New Zealand policy’ Report

MYD commissioned this research project to better understand the barriers to including refugee and ethnic migrant youth voice in decision-making. The report aims to identify issues or areas for enhancing safety, inclusion, and effectiveness to support refugee and ethnic migrant youth participation in government decision-making. It looked at what young people need to improve their futures to help guide government, policymakers, and people who work with young people and the wider sector.

This report is an addition to the information, resources, and knowledge available to provide a pathway for policymakers and community organisations who work with and for migrant and ethnic minority young people.

Download the ‘Connect & Kōrero – Innovating to amplify refugee and ethnic migrant youth voice in Aotearoa New Zealand policy’ report here.

Project DMs – Insight Gathering and Youth Wellbeing Micro-Campaign Report

The Project DMs – Insight Gathering and Youth Wellbeing Micro-Campaign Report was made possible through a partnership between MYD, Te Hiringa Hauora, and creative agency, Curative. Led by Te Hiringa Hauora as an action under the government’s Youth Plan, Project DMs aims to understand the experiences and needs of rangatahi Māori and Pasifika young people transitioning out of school amidst the global complexity of COVID-19. These young people are at a point of transition in their lives, a stage in their life where freedom, personal agency, responsibility, and resilience increasingly evolve.

Between September 2020 and February 2021, insights were gathered through design research, listening, making, and testing to arrive at a clear sense of how the wellbeing of young people can best be supported. Project DMs has revealed there are significant opportunities to better support the wellbeing of rangatahi Māori and Pasifika young people in transition.

Experiences of COVID-19 for takatāpui, queer, gender diverse, and intersex young people aged 16-24 years Report

MYD commissioned this research to better understand the experiences of rainbow rangatahi aged 16-24 years of COVID-19, and Alert Levels 3 and 4 and the pandemic in general. The Report aimed to understand the enablers, needs, challenges, and barriers for young people and the impact COVID-19 will have on their futures. It looked at what young people need to improve their futures to help guide government, policymakers, and people who work with young people and the wider sector.

Data was collected in October 2020 using an online survey, a roundtable of Rainbow organisations, interviews, and a focus group. Participation was encouraged and advertised on Facebook and Instagram and was also promoted on MYD’s social media channels and by various rainbow organisations.

This report is a first step towards setting out those needs and aims to provide a pathway for policymakers and community organisations who work with and for rainbow young people.

Negotiating Multiple Identities: Intersecting Identities among Māori, Pacific, Rainbow and Disabled Young People Report

Intersectionality provides us with a lens that assists us in understanding the overlapping of multiple identities and relations to more than one group. It helps us to see how our memberships to multiple groups shape us individually. The interconnectedness of culture, circumstance and sexuality plays a part in the way in which minorities are perceived, treated, and often disadvantaged.

The Negotiating Multiple Identities: Intersecting Identities among Māori, Pacific, Rainbow and Disabled Young People Report (the Report), funded by MYD, sheds light on the importance of understanding the way in which intersectionality impacts on the rangatahi across various intersectionalities. This understanding can be used to better support future generations.

This Report is part of the Youth19 Rangatahi Smart Survey (Youth19), which is the latest in the Youth2000 series of health and wellbeing surveys.

Youth Engagement Zoom Hui Report

On 04 March 2021, then Minister for Youth Hon Priyanca Radhakrishnan hosted a Youth Engagement Zoom Hui (Zhui) with over 130 young people, youth workers, and youth sector organisation representatives from the Auckland region. The Zhui was organised by MYD.

The Zhui was in response to the COVID-19 community outbreak in Auckland. It gave participants an opportunity to ask questions of a panel and talk about the challenges they were experiencing as a result of Alert Level changes, and discuss three different topics.

After the Q & A session with the panel and the topic discussion, Zhui participants were encouraged to send through additional questions, so they could be answered after the event. We have arranged the questions under key themes and have provided answers from relevant government agencies in the attached document entitled ‘Youth Engagement Zoom Hui Report (the Report)’. The answers contained within this Report were provided in April 2021 by relevant agencies and represent a moment in time.

Youth Pulse Check Survey

Launched during Lockdown, the Youth Pulse Check Survey provided an opportunity to hear directly from young people on how they were managing during lockdown and how government could support them during the different COVID-19 Alert phases, including the post-COVID-19 recovery. The online survey was open between 18 April and 16 May 2020 and over 2,650 young people participated.

Download the Youth Pulse Check Survey results slides here.

Download the Youth Pulse Check Survey A3 snapshot here.

Disclaimer: This survey was not intended to be an accurate representative sample. The survey was conducted online, and data has not been weighted against the Aotearoa New Zealand population, so results will be biased to those over-represented. These results cannot be generalised to the total population aged 12 to 24 years.