A Truly Amazing Person I Know

I have an amazing friend Mereana. For the last 9 years she has dedicated her life to an amazing cause call ed Youth Team Trust. Her program takes at risk teens away on camps and helps them to take different and more positive direction in their lives. I have been to the camps first hand as a volunteer and seen first hand how powerful this program is. Most of the young people are very damaged and come from abusive backgrounds so their road ahead is not easy. 65% of the young girls have been or still are being sexually abused so the stories are very harrowing at times. The progams success is based on a simple formula. If the young people feel safe, they will share their stories and learn how to help each other.

Perhaps the best way to explain this program is to share with you a letter I wrote in support of Mereana and Youth Team Trust for funding.

To Whom it May Concern

RE: Youth Team Trust (YTT)

I had the pleasure of being involved in YTT as a volunteer and also attended board meetings so that I could contribute at an organisational level. I also assisted the program’s Founder, in generating a strategic plan for the future of YTT. Given my 2 year involvement in YTT I feel confident that I am qualified to give some meaningful insight into its value.

I saw firsthand by going to camps, the impact YTT has on our young people. It was one of the most moving experiences of my life. To hear the harrowing stories of the environments’ some of our young people are subject to, was a real eye opener for me. The shock of this, to me from a privileged background really highlighted the absolute necessity of programs such as YTT. However this ‘shock’, came a distant 2nd to the positive impact of seeing the program (YTT) in action. When the unbelievable courage of these young people, is combined with power of the program, one can truly see lives changing.

The statistics speak for themselves but what they don’t show, is the life changing process these young people undertake during their time at camp. An environment of immense trust and safety is created at the camps and allows (perhaps for the first time ever) these amazing young New Zealanders to share their stories and the emotional impacts of the events of their lives to date. The program helps them, to help themselves, understand the connections between their upbringing (and/or environments) and their destructive behaviours’ (drugs, alcohol, crime, truancy etc). The program is a journey for each young person, from not really understanding (or caring about) why they engage in destructive behaviors’, to understanding why, to really ‘getting’ that it’s not their fault (their past), and then seeing that it’s up to them, to take responsibility from now on to make their existence positive.

The program works. It is powerful. It is unique. It is necessary. Mereana, the program’s founder is someone of incredible heart, drive and integrity. Youth Team Trust serves New Zealand’s young people. It helps them change themselves. It helps them save themselves. It helps them, to help other young people do the same.

Yours Sincerely

Shane Wotherspoon

Please add a comment or your own story and/or forward this to your network asking others to do the same.

I want to collect stories of ordinary people doing amazing things.  Not the famous stuff that everyone knows about, I am meaning people you actually personally know.  It doesn’t have to be something that would make headline news, just something that you thought was super cool, maybe a sporting acheievment against the odds, or someone who does incredible things to/for other people or animals or the environment or the community, whatever.  Please share, because I have looked in the internet searches and only the really famous stuff appears.  So many great people go under the radar.

Thanks so much and have a super day.

Shane