Help us 'START A MATCH'

Big Brothers Big Sisters of Christchurch aims to provide disadvantaged young person across our city with a positive adult role model, a trusted friend and someone to help provide experiences and opportunities that the young person would most likely have missed out on. We do this by recruiting, screening and training volunteers from the local community to become mentors. The BBBS team than offer the ongoing professional support and supervision of the match, with the hope of the friendship lasting many years and that it will help build resilience in that young person to be able to go on and overcome adversities and other challenges that may come their way.

Children and young people are referred to the Big Brothers Big Sisters programme from concerned parents/caregivers, grandparents, teachers and school social workers, health nurses and other community groups. The young person has been identified as having circumstances that mean they are not receiving the same opportunities afforded to their peers. The volunteer mentors are adults already in that young persons local community who want to help support their community and make a change in the life of a young person. The will meet together once a week and participate in all sorts of fun activities in their local community or school and develop a trusted friendship. Our programme evaluation consistently shows that the young people in our programme show significant improvement in their self confidence since having a mentor as well as show more engagement at school and better emotional regulation and peer relations. International studies show that young people with a mentor are less likely to abuse drugs and alcohol are more likely to stay in school and show less antisocial behaviours. We believe the impact of mentoring is powerful because it is simple in its nature and relational at its core.