Scheme to give hope, work to young

Press, 24 June 1978, Page 2

Scheme to give hope, work to young

A Hawke’s Bay forestry! adviser and contractor is! promoting a scheme which he says could provide jobs for up to 500 young unemployed school-leavers a year in Canterbury-Westland. The project, using Government funding, started with the help of a Napier high, school teacher, has a six-! week period of training in skills such as care and use of tools, nutrition, wildlife i management, erosion control, bushcraft and hygiene, followed by three to 12 months working outdoors. A pilot project along these lines has been approved in Hawke’s Bay by the Government, and the scheme's founder, Mr W. J. Gimblett, is now promoting the idea > throughout New Zealand. Mr Gimblett sees the scheme as a means of providing useful employment as well as a continuing education for school-leavers who are either not able to find jobs or who have not made up their minds about a suitable career. The chairman of the Canterbury Regional( Employment Committee (Mr M. B. Hayes) said yesterday ' that he would seek more j details about the scheme. j ’Tm quite sure our com-i # llimil l 7 1

[mittee will be interested in Shaving a look at this,” he i said. The committee itself has promoted four courses so far at the Christchurch Technical Institute, and has two others now being held. At present more than 2000 ■ young people are registered unemployed and probably an equal number on temporary ■employment. Apart from any (other factors, this is expected to swell when the .school term ends. The numbers of school-leavers will increase in the next few vears as “baby boom” children enter the labour market. “New Zealand is a prim-ary-producing country, and it is central to our wellbeing ’that we foster the skills : needed. We must educate .people to live in the country,” said Mr Gimblett. He said there was a lot of potential for more employment on the land, with more emphasis on horticulture and

n less on grassland farming, e There was a need for more labour-intensive farm work s and a reduction of the use r of machinery. -[ The need for employment o| projects was critically important, he said. “It couldn’t be more damj i aging to be unemployed at 1 the time of leaving school. / It is then that young people are desperately searching for ' their identity, and in the abe pence of proper employment : that search becomes so ■[much more difficult,” said ;, 'Mr Gimblett. ’! If these school-leavers were left without a chance • to work they could lose the 1 desire to work, establish bad ? habits, or become involved 3 with alcohol or other drugs, s he said. Mr Gimblett started the F project with Mr N. F. ; Pearce, a' careers adviser and . teacher at Colenso High I School, Napier.