Project Hope

About 25 Kiwi teenagers aged 14 to 16, all from challenging backgrounds. Dealing with some big personal challenges and excluded from mainstream school. Our aim is to give them hope for their own futures. Without hope, the future is bleak – not just for them but also for our communities. Hopeless citizens end up in our prison statistics, our beneficiary statistics, and inevitably they also have families of their own. Our aim is to break this cycle, by giving them an opportunity that harnesses their talents, highlights their strengths, and demonstrates to them that they have the capacity to help others and by so doing be valuable members of their communities.

Project Hope is a community outreach initiative from the YMCA. It has never been done before - we are embarking on a world first in terms of alternative education.

It is about giving the most at risk youth a chance at a life-changing education, now they have been excluded from the traditional school system.

We want to take more than 20 kids and seven teachers to Nepal, to help rebuild the second poorest country in the world, after the devastating earthquakes that took place two years ago.

The idea here is that not only will we help Nepal. We’ll also build hope, self esteem, a sense of self worth, and change these kids’ lives and by so doing impact on them, their siblings, their families and their future families.

In the scheme of things this is a low cost project for a big world changing outcome. The YMCA has been preparing the students for nearly a year, and we have been documenting their journey for a film to be released in 2017. It’s a big crazy story about hope. The pricetag is $200,000. The value is priceless.

And we’re asking you to give them a hand. To help change their outlook. Help them appreciate that there are many people in this world who are worse off than them, who need their help, and that working to help others is the most rewarding thing there is. While they are in Nepal these students will work with YMCA Nepal and Australian Himalayan Trust to undertake small projects with young people – sharing their own earthquake stories, helping with their lessons, painting buildings and removing rocks from fields.

We believe that when they come back they will have a different outlook on their own lives and how they want their own futures to pan out. This is what we mean by breaking the cycle.

What do you say? Will you give a little to help a lot? How much do you think a second chance is worth?

Project Hope is all about being the change.

***Supporting ‘Project Hope'***

BE PART OF THE JOURNEY

· THE YMCA has been making a documentary about these young people for a year. The documentary includes the lead up to the Nepal trip, the personal stories of the young people and their families, why some great people and businesses think this important, the trip to Nepal and the post-trip outcomes. This documentary will be released into the international film festival circuit in 2017. All donors will be acknowledged in the documentary credits.

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