City Youth Worker gets grant

Mana (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 4, 18 August 1977, Page 8

City Youth Worker gets grant

Auckland youth worker, Mr Will Ilolahia, has received a government research grant to study youth services in Auckland. Auckland’s recreation centres have not been attracting a wide selection of city youth, especially Maori and other Polynesian youth. Mr Ilolahia’s job is to find out why. He will be working with Auckland University’s Sociology Department while doing the research. The department’s head, Professor David Pitt, says there are not enough recreation centres in the areas they

serve. Too many are in the central city area where no-one lives. “The problem is not the lack of centres but it’s their form which makes them unattractive.” Hs says the city needs a large number of youth clubs in the community run by people from those communities. Mr Ilolahia’s research will include a study of Boystowm, the Police Department’s youth centre in Nelson St. Boystown director, Mr Terry Hill says the centre is popular but he feels some city youth are not being reached by the present programmes. Mr Ilolahia has his own ideas on youth work. He recently returned from the third Asian-Pacific Youth Workers’ Conference in Hong Kong. He says Hong Kong youth programmes have been successful in involving young people and crime rates had dropped as a result. A lot of the work was done by voluntary groups who worked with young people on the streets rather than from offices. This sort of youth work was possible because the Hong Kong Government spent over $2O m. on it, says Mr Ilolahia. The same assistance is not available in New Zealand and this has caused social

problems, he adds: Mr Ilolahia (25), is a youth worker for the One Tree Hill Borough Council and a founder member of the Polynesian Panther Party. He is also a graduate of Auckland University having a degree in. sociology.