Inspiring Food and Fibre Futures in Schools event was held at Orton Bradley Park as part of Inspiring the Future, an initiative that aims to broaden tamariki’s career horizons and challenge stereotypes by connecting volunteer role models with schools. The school involved was Haeata Community Campus. Haeata goes from year 1 – 13 and is built around the values Hanga Whare, Alofa, Manaakitanga, Service, and Success, the tamariki who were apart of the two days at the food and fibre event were between 10-13 years old. The aim was to promote careers in the food and fibre sector to young people. The students did other farm activities before and after their Inspiring the Future session. In the Inspiring the Future session, we had a kōrero with students about our job and our journey. Students asked questions to try and guess our job, then we revealed what we do, and spoke to students in smaller groups.

Alice promoted her job but also the industry as a whole, opening their minds to the opportunities available in Aotearoa working with plants. A lot of the students never knew that you could work with plants and had a very skewed idea of the jobs that were out there, for example, a doctor, a lawyer, a construction worker, a teacher, etc. roles that they have been exposed to or told about. Although these tamariki will not be heading into the workforce any time soon, they are the future workforce, and it is important to embed ideas and opportunities into their minds to expand their horizons.

Overall, it was really eye opening and beneficial to understand how 11-13 year olds think about the workforce and their ideas around jobs.