Building Communities - a case study

From the Porirua Sundown Bulletin

Last week we were fortunate enough to have Wayne and Jennifer Pouta come and tell us about their experiences working with the youth of the cannons Creek area. Wayne and Jennifer wanted to help the young from going down the wrong path in life and thought they could help by keeping them out of the gang scene. So a long with their neighbour they set up a park area in their back yards with trampolines and basketball hoops. They invited the young to come they gave them

Waye and Jennifer

somewhere to go and showed they cared. And so their project called Streets Ahead 237 was born. It was always their intention to make it a community initiative and now after teaching the community how to run this project they are handing it back over to them. Their role will now be in support and teaching and maybe even higher places. Well done to them as it was very frightening to learn how many kids and different gangs were involved and how that number has decreased significantly and the crime has decreased.