Bays in Action & Bays Youth Voice

Community mobilisation promoting the wellbeing of young people

The Bays in Action Think Tank was established as a community-led collective to explore strength-based solutions to youth violence and bullying.

A partnership project between ANCAD and Heart of the Bays evolved towards fostering a community owned Collective of community members, community agencies, local businesses and local government. What has emerged is a group focussed on promoting greater wellbeing for all, with an intentional focus on youth development.

A Youth Strategy has been developed by the group and we are now exploring our Action Plan for Wellbeing.

Our biggest challenge is to prioritise the many awesome ideas the group has suggested and decide the first win in what we hope to be an enduring work plan of complementary wellbeing initiatives.

The group has a vision of having youth at the heart of everything they do, our logo (at top of page) was created by a year 7 student at Northcross Intermediate and graphically designed by local business, Logo Logo NZ for the group to use as its brand and collective identity.

Bays Youth Voice

One of the core purposes of Bays in Action is to “increase youth voice in decisions that impact on young people”.

Bays Youth Voice is a fabulous group of rangatahi aged between 11 and 25 years, focused on supporting youth development opportunities for our local young people.

The group was established in recognition of recommendations provided in MSD funded research undertaken by Dr Cristy Trewartha.

“The key consideration for new efforts to address family violence towards young people and promote safety and wellbeing was increasing youth voice and ensuring a diversity of youth voices in decision making.” (Community Readiness to address family violence towards young people and promote the safety and wellbeing of young people in the East Coast Bays, p. 39).

The BiA Collective communicates and consults with young people by having a liaison role attend the Bays Youth Voice hui, this role facilitates Bays Youth Voice connection with the community and supports them to plan, develop and implement their youth-led initiatives and events.

Photo below: Bays Youth Voice – Vote Bins Initiative – Consulting on the Long Bay Youth Park 2024