Valuable lessons for local students on journey to summit

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Media release
For immediate release
6 December 2016

Valuable lessons for local students on journey to summit

For many students, attending an outdoor education programme is out of reach due to challenging financial circumstances. Genesis Energy has been a long-time supporter of Hillary Outdoors, a charitable trust with Outdoor Education Centres on Great Barrier Island and adjacent to Tongariro National Park. Thanks to their support, students from Huntly College, Ruapehu College, Taumarunui Primary School, Te Kuiti High School, Tongariro School and Wairoa College have been able to attend Hillary Outdoors programmes. We spoke to teachers from Huntly, Ruapehu and Tongariro about their trips and how they felt the students benefited from the Genesis Energy support.

The students that attended the Tongariro based programmes developed skills such as leadership, teamwork and perseverance, which are important skills for life. Huntly College teacher, Asher Morley believes that “through making attendance at Hillary Outdoors available for these young ones, they have the opportunity to learn the fundamental life values in an extremely trialling environment. It is under these conditions that these values are tested in a real and controlled risk environment. This cannot be taught in any other environment.” Nik Lewis from Tongariro School noted that students were encouraged to extend their comfort zones, “the end result being their confidence was developed and natural leaders have been able to shine.” While Ruapehu principal, Kim Basse, said “It has been pleasing to see less able students really give activities a go. We get to see students excel in the outdoors where they would not normally in the classroom. It’s also been great to see students working as a team.”

Asher also highlighted a special moment of teamwork and selfless thinking, where some of the young men in the group had the ability to achieve their goal of summiting Tongariro, however there was a student who physically couldn’t make it. Instead of leaving this student behind, ”they made a conscious decision to selflessly forgo their hopes and wishes in achieving this amazing feat for the care, tautoko and wellbeing of a fellow teammate. They sacrificed reaching the top of the mountain but instead accomplished something more valuable than reaching the summit. This experience is what builds up strong character and maturity, it helps them develop in ways that only experiences like these can provide.”

Kim found that students that attend Hillary Outdoors want to do more in the outdoors, “we have a subject called Outdoor Education at year 11 and we find that after attending Hillary Outdoors, many of our students want to take this subject.” Asher also believes this to be true, saying that “the students do want to do more in the outdoors because they see what is available to do. One of the biggest challenges with helping these students engage in the outdoors is the fact that they have no real idea of what is actually available. It has given them the exposure we needed to encourage them to want to join the Senior Outdoor Ed Academy in our school in 2017.”

Asher concludes “I cannot portray sufficiently how grateful our school is for what Genesis Energy do for us in helping provide these opportunities to our young people.”

ENDS

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