Manukura smashing a World Record for the Mental Health Foundation

Over the past two years, Ōtaki College on the Kāpiti Coast, has developed and run a boys leadership programme called Manukura GPS. The programme was designed and is run by one of the teachers at the College. The group was formed in the hopes of providing a sense of belonging, connection and positivity to our rangatahi and also in response to one of our students taking their own life in 2018.

Throughout 2019 the crew were immense and contributed to a massive change in culture at the College in regards to taking pride in who we are, how we do things and also being able to be comfortable celebrating success and hard work. All the boys involved turn up for our programme every morning of the week at 7:30am and sessions finish at 8:30am ready for the school day proper, to begin. Thorughout 2019, Manukura were instrumental in completing a wide variety of school events which increased engagement levels across the whole school and also helped to support the 40 Hour Famine by completing a 40 hour game of indoor football which raised over $5000 and resulted in us receiving World Vision awards for 'Most Creative Fundraiser' and 'Community Engagement'.

This year, the group has grown in size, is now an official class on our school timetable and has continued to ensure that we are looking after our place, our people and our way of doing things.

This year, we want to set our sights far higher in terms of supporting our community and putting Manukura GPS and Ōtaki College on the map. As mentioned above, the group arose partially due to the pain in having someone dear to us take his life. Our intention is to raise as much awareness and hopefully money as well, to support the Mental Health Foundation as they fill such a massive hole in supporting the Mental Health and Self Harm issues we see not only in our community but also nation wide. To support this kaupapa we are endeavoring to break the official Guinness World Record for the longest marathon game of four square - a school yard game. The current record stands at 29 hours.

To break an official World Record would be one thing, but to use the platform of such an attempt to then try and raise awareness of a huge need in our community is really what it is all about.

We are making preparations to complete this attempt on the 3rd/4th of October. If this is something that you could tautoko and support in any way possible, myself and the rest of the lads would be forever grateful. We want to make a difference but we also understand that it will take more than just the 30 odd of us to start moving mountains - however it's something we are prepared to try and do anyway.

If there is any way possible that you feel you would be able to help with this, then I look forward to hearing from you in the near future. Equally, thank you for your time, I hope you have an enjoyable end to your week.