What happens when a bunch of young Chinese kids get transported in the New Zealand wilderness?
A huge thanks to Rachel Chen for this video!
Rachel is a former participant of one of our Inspire programmes and she has a strong desire to support the Chinese community in New Zealand.
So she organised a group of ten Chinese kids to be part of this made-to-order two-day “bush survival skills” course, through Adventure Specialties Trust Christchurch.
(Check out the photos below, and read more about Rachel’s story at the end.)
More about Rachels’ story:
“During our Term 1 “Inspire” programme, we had a tauira (participant) called Rachel Chen.
Rachel is from China and came to New Zealand a few years ago to complete her post graduate diploma at Ara Polytechnic. Following her study, she worked for a guiding company in Queenstown whose sole clientele were Chinese.
During the initial covid19 lockdown, she lost her job and was unsure what her next moves were.
When she saw the Inspire program advertised on a facebook group she thought it would be a great opportunity to gain some more experience in the outdoor industry and learn from the facilitators.
Over the 6 week programme, Rachel asked many questions about how to facilitate each activity and often took on a leadership role within the group helping with gear set up and skills.
Through our conversations we learnt about her interest in growing further is this area and her passion to support the Chinese community in Aotearoa.
These discussions lead to conversations about possible holiday programs and creating opportunity for Chinese rangatahi (youth) to engage with outdoor spaces.
Rachel came into the Christchurch office and met with Andy, our operations manager, to discuss a partnership.
She already had designed a programme plan, which we agreed we could deliver. Following her marketing efforts, a group of 10 Chinese students took part in a Bush Skills overnighter during the recent school holidays.
The participants and their whanau (families) shared rave reviews.
Since then, Rachel has met with the Christchurch team and organised two more programmes for this term.”
– Written by Anneke (Christchurch adventure therapy clinician) and April (Christchurch field instructor)
