Teens building resilience through summer fun

A SERIES of free summer adventures hosted by the Rural City of Wangaratta’s (RCoW’s) youth branch are aiming to build resilience among local teens. Some 20 local youths aged between 13 and 17 travelled to Porepunkah recently for the first of three holiday events, taking to the Ovens River on kayaks and paddleboards in warm weather as part of a program RCoW youth development officer Rachel Harrop said had been wildly popular. A second group travelled to Bright Escape Rooms on Friday, with the final event to be held at Brookfield Maze on January 25. The initiative is supported by the Future Proof: Young People, Disaster Recovery and (Re)building Communities program, which was a result of a federal Black Summer Bushfire Recovery grant in the wake of the 2020 bushfires. “Our library and our gallery have school holiday programs but they’re for the younger age group, so now that we’ve got more of a youth team – there are five of us now – we thought we’d do a holiday program as well,” Ms Harrop said. “We just put it out on Facebook and Instagram and pretty much all of the spaces got taken up straight away. “It’s about bringing young people together and building resilience and recovery after natural disasters.” Ms Harrop said the initiative was likely to return during the Easter holiday break, while council’s $20 responsible service of alcohol, food handling and barista short courses would also be on offer. The latter programs are funded through a Victorian Government Engage! grant, and were last run during last year’s September school holidays. Local youths aged between 14 and 19 are also being sought to join council's Future Proof youth advisory group, to lend their own thoughts on how best to shape recovery and resilience efforts in the rural city. For more information and to sign up for future programs, visit https://www.wangaratta.vic.gov.au/Residents/Youth.

Teens building resilience through summer fun

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