Back to Blog

Summer Blast Teen Camp 24' Recap

What an incredible week with a fantastic group of young people at Summer Blast 2024! Witnessing their growth as they navigate life's corners much like the dirt bike track has been truly inspiring. We had a blast with 3 days of riding and an epic Encounter X-games day at the lake. Over the course of camp, our facilitators brought some thought-provoking messages based on the life of Paul (Saul) and the valuable lessons we can learn from his walk with God. Our awesome Camp Coordinator, Kyan, p...

Youth Encounter continues to offer youth development for those at risk!

Article provided by TECT.It might not, on the face of it, seem significant, but a casual conversation outside a fish and chip shop in Pukehina proved to be a major development for one young person.That young person was struggling with behaviour issues and lacked confidence. Unable to make conversations and involved in criminal activities, he was referred to Youth Encounter.Through engaging with clinical counselling, matched mentoring and group therapy, he learned about values, setting goals and ...

Trinity Lands doubling your Donation Impact

Trinity Lands Ltd has generously committed to match funding up to $30,000 for our campaign. This means that for every dollar you contribute, Trinity Lands will match it, effectively doubling the impact of your donation up to a total of $30,000. Their support is a powerful endorsement of our mission to empower the young people of Aotearoa New Zealand, who may not believe in their God-given potential. With Trinity Lands' generous pledge, we have the opportunity to ensure that even more young indiv...

Help Us Empower Aotearoa's Youth to Thrive!

Join us in our vision to empower the young people of Aotearoa New Zealand who may not believe in their God-given potential. We are a youth development organisation dedicated to unleashing the potential in young people. We do this by providing therapeutic, activity-based programs that allow youth to thrive and live life to the fullest. With your support, we can make a significant impact on the lives of these youth.We are launching a fundraising campaign that will run for four weeks, starting on N...

Cameron's Story: Overcoming the Villian

Cameron’s journey with Youth Encounter has been a testament to his resilience and growth. Struggling with confidence due to Tourette Syndrome, he found himself concealing his tics, often hiding his face to mask the involuntary movements. Through the dedicated guidance of his Youth Encounter mentor, Cameron discovered a newfound sense of self-acceptance. Understanding that he doesn't need to feel embarrassed about aspects beyond his control became a pivotal moment in his transformation.Particip...

Story of Transformation: Strengthening Connections

Diagnosed with Reactive Attachment Disorder in his early childhood, Sam struggled to form strong connections with others, and only had a few friends as he struggled with identity due to being abandoned as a child.  Prior to engaging with our programmes at Youth Encounter, a representative from his School recognised the lack of value that Sam had for himself and sought to find an initiative that would assist him with finding purpose in life and having hope for the future.  Sam also has ...

A Remarkable Story of Transformation

Tom's transformation through his involvement at Youth Encounter is truly remarkable. Tom was referred to Youth Encounter by a parent who expressed a desperate need for our help.  Before engaging with Youth Encounter, Tom struggled with overwhelming anxiety, frequent bullying from his peers, lacked confidence and resorted to self-harming behavior's due to these challenges. His referral reported that from the time he entered playgroup as a young child, he had been labeled as a loud, rough, na...

Unleashing Potential through Social Work Values

Kia Ora e te whānauKo Kopukairoa te MaungaKo Waitao te awaKo Mataatua te wakaKo Ngāti Pūkenga te iwiKo Gemma ahau My name is Gemma and I am a Youth Facilitator here at Youth Encounter. I am half way through my Bachelor of Social Work at Bethlehem Tertiary Institute. I am so blessed to be apart of Youth Encounter through this time of exponential growth and extension of resources, staff, kaupapa and opportunities. Throughout my time at Youth Encounter, I have been give the opportunity to a...

Brighten Young Lives with Moana Road Sunglasses

In today's fast-paced world, making a difference can be as simple as updating your wardrobe. Moana Roads 50/50 sunglasses are the perfect accessory that not only enhances your style but also contributes to the bright futures of young people in Aotearoa New Zealand. With $2 from every pair of 50/50 #461sunglasses sold donated to Youth Encounter NZ, your purchase goes a long way in unleashing the potential in the youth of Aotearoa.Moana Road is a New Zealand-based company known for producing a wid...

Ruth's Story of Transformation: The Future is Bright

Ruth is a bright 15-year-old who resides in the community of Te Puke with her whānau. Ruth carries a maturity and a solidified sense of integrity. She values her family immensely and is always striving to be more connected to them. Ruth had a very reserved and hidden nature about her. She felt like she couldn't let anyone know who she truly was and about her past and the hardships she continually faces. Ruth had significant mental health disorders and intellectual disability which caused a lack...

Dirt Bike Therapy Transforming Lives

We believe every rangatahi has the potential to fly high in life and Youth Encounter's therapy programme is about unleashing that incredible potential. The Live Life Wide Open Framework takes groups on an exciting and exhilarating journey of understanding themselves and the potential you have through learning to safely ride a dirt bike on motocross and trail tracks.In the process of getting on track, they discover and experience how powerful their minds are and the potential they have when they ...

Encounter Camps 2018 Update

Under the Youth Encounter umbrella, Encounter Camps has successfully run 9 camps over 36 days with 241 participants this year. From teen camps to parent child camps, young adults leadership camps and a volunteer staff camp, we have experienced a 50% growth this year in our Encounter Camps programme. Much of this increase is attributed to our Programme Coordinator Tracey Christian who has worked towards increasing our capacity and creating sustainability for our camping programme. Her vision of s...

Success Story

Dylan started with Youth Encounter February 2017 at 13 years old and was disengaged with the education system. He initially was referred through the Te Puke Alternative Education to our Dirt Bike Encounter therapy programme and completed our Live Life Wide Open Framework.  Dylan then went on to receive one on one mentoring sessions and has attended three of our teen camps and our parent child camp with his mum.  He is still actively involved with Youth Encounter, continuing on the Enco...

Mary’s revelations and insights

I believe every person can encounter their God-given potential for greatness when they believe in their value, that they are enough. When we don’t believe we are good enough, we operate from this place. It is not that we are there yet or encountered all our potential, but when we can identify as being good enough as our staring point, our potential is unleashed and released to the freedom we have to imagine and create much more incredible things.  It is not often that someone has a baby a...

Mary’s revelations & insights

Youth Encounter (community, therapy, mentoring, camps) is not focused on behaviour modification, but rather heart transformation because your heart is the wellspring of life and our behaviours flow from this place. Just like on your phone, to change how it operates on the outside, you go into the settings app and make the changes on the inside.  Our behaviours flow out of the settings in our heart, and when there has been lack of connection/love, neglect, abuse, trauma etc, it sets us up in...

Encounter Volunteers

What an awesome weekend with the incredible volunteer staff who give their time, expertise and passion to making Youth Encounter possible. The hours from our 40+ volunteers equals to 3 full time staff hours which is an incredible gift to the organisation so we wanted to give something back to these wonderful people....

Send it Spring Newsletter

Read our latest newsletter to learn about the exciting goings on at Youth Encounter and what we have coming up over the next few months....

Quarterly Newsletter May18

...

Quarterly Newsletter March 18

...

Celebrations for another incredible year

Volunteers are essential to Youth Encounters vision and mission of unleashing and releasing the potential in young people to encounter the real them who God incredibly created them to be. We are truely blessed to have such a variety of skills and expertise amongst our volunteers staff who dedicate so much to the organisation. It was awesome to celebrate another successful year together with some gokart racing thanks to Ian Chew at Off Road NZ in Rotorua. ...

Spring has arrived with the festivities of Encounter Camps

Encounter Camps Sprig Fest 17 was once again full of a vibrant spring atmosphere. The seven day residential camp experience was all about discovering more of life and connecting with others along with riding our dirt bikes. The learning topic was one that relates to youth and is very important at their age and stage of life. The objective was to understand and learn how God created us for meaningful friendship with Himself and other people. One of our core values at Youth Encounter is to nurture...

Kawerau fly high at Dirt Bike Encounter

A crew of six students and one tutor from Kawerau's AE (alternative education course) embarked on a journey of learning new skills and powerful thinking over term 3 with Youth Encounters 'Dirt Bike Encounter' process. Dirt Bike Encounter aims to empower marginalised rangatahi youth through dirt bike riding as a therapeutic process. "Dirt Bike Encounter has helped me go to course more and have a better attitude" said one participant, and another commented how it had made him think about "staying...

Mary's revelations & insights

What stops us from trusting someone? When we don't believe they are trustworthy. What makes someone untrustworthy? Usually we would say it's because they have broken our trust or have not gained our trust but I think there's more to it. Trust is a choice because we are all untrustworthy as none of us are perfect. The people in your life who bring you the greatest joy will most probably bring you the greatest headache. If your trust is dependant on how someone makes you feel you will never trust ...

Mary's revelations & insights

We live in a culture of scarcity that says we never have enough which leads us to believing we need more. This is called coveting. Coveting says we are not good enough, we are not secure enough, we are not perfect enough, we are not confident enough, we are not significant enough and we are need to be extraordinary to belong. Ordinary has become not good enough and we are being told purpose is found in being extraordinary. ...

Mary's revelations & insights

God sees our passions and desires. In fact He put them in us and He wants to empower us to fulfil them because that's the potential He created us with. He didn't create us to imagine and dream just to see us fall short of our passions and desires. So why are people less happy than ever before if God really wants us to encounter our potential?  I believe our unmet desires are the reason for our suffering of unhappiness. God created us with desires because He wants us to reach our full potent...