Moving On, a pilot project that will track and assist students leaving school this year from eight targeted Christchurch secondary schools, begins in Christchurch this week. The start of the project is timed to coincide with the last week at school for many young people.

The schools are: Aranui High School, Mairehau High School, Linwood College, Hornby High School, Hillmorton High School, Cashmere High School, and Papanui High School. It is anticipated there will be some 1800 to 2000 young people leaving from these schools at the end of this year.

“We want to ensure that all school leavers are participating fully in employment and training activities,” says Deb Beesley, manager of Canterbury Development Corporation Limited’s Employment Services, which is co-ordinating the Moving On pilot.

“Our Youth Employment Service Actionworks has been out to all the schools involved and spoken to the students. We have already started to receive completed forms they have filled in to be a part of the programme. Names will be entered into a database and we can keep track of them as they move into training and employment.”

Actionworks will assist them with preparing their own work and training programme and will then contact them regularly to see how they are getting on and whether they need help in getting to the next step.

Actionworks is a partnership between the Canterbury Development Corporation (CDC) and Work and Income. The Moving On pilot is a result of unique co-operation between local government and central government, says Christchurch Mayor Garry Moore.

“Nearly 30% of the City’s young people under 20 are registered unemployed and that simply is not good enough. This is our way of doing something tangible about it,” Garry says.

The project started as an initiative of the Mayor’s Task Force, which became a goal of the national Mayor's Forum, chaired by Garry Moore. CDC joined forces with Work and Income to obtain Government funding. In July, the Minister of Employment (Steve Maharey) agreed to $700,000 per year for three years to fund the Canterbury Youth Strategy.