Young Marist Neighbours

The goal of Young Marist Neighbours is stated as ‘to provide young people with the opportunity to serve those in need, to learn what the Scriptures and our Tradition say about justice, and to hear the ways that God is calling them to convert the kingdom of niceness into the Kingdom of God.’ 

This is a week-long residential programme for Year 12 students. Beginning with some preparation time at Hato Pāora College, groups of up to fourteen students chosen by their schools, accompanied by their Young Marist leaders, spend time in one of our Partner Communities (see below), connecting and engaging with the local people, learning from the cross-cultural situation, and seeing and experiencing first hand the short-term challenges and long-term effects of systemic poverty. The ‘See, Judge, Act’ of Catholic Social Teaching is explained and put into practice, and we help the students to attain the experience, skills and learning needed to make change possible. 

Young Marist Neighbours is a confronting programme, challenging students’ perceptions at every level, and taking them well out of their comfort zones, both physically and mentally. Some of this is orchestrated as part of the programme, and some comes from witnessing the fall-out from social dysfunction that has occurred for any one of a variety of reasons. At the same time, though, the students have the opportunity to sit at the feet of some of New Zealand’s outstanding leaders and social commentators, as well as visit and stay in some of the most beautiful and remote rain forest in the whole country. 

The final night of the programme is spent back at Hato Pāora College. Here we help the students to bring closure to their experience by processing what has happened, and the effects that the experience has had on them. 

Young Marist Neighbours began in 2007. There are usually six programmes each year, five for students and one for teachers.

The venues for Young Marist Neighbours are: 

  • Te Whaiti / Minginui / Ngaputahi

  • Ruatahuna

  • Ruatoria

  • Ranana

  • Waiohau

  • Whanganui

These places are referred to as our Partner Communities, because gradually our connection with them is extending beyond just visiting for the Young Marist Neighbours programme. Whaia te Whaea, the project led by the late Hemi Hekiera SM and Dave Gledhill SM in the Hamilton diocese is also a partner in our work in some of the Partner Communities.

Marist Staff Neighbours Programme

This programme grew out of the realisation that students returning to school from the Young Marist Neighbours programme were having some difficulty in articulating what was a very personal experience, and so the on-going processing of the programme was somewhat hampered. To meet this unexpected need, Young Marists instituted a Marist Neighbours for staff. The programme is based at Te Whaiti, and we take the staff participants through the same process as the students, visiting the same places, listening to the same people, and experiencing the same group dynamics. Some of the more confronting and complex dynamics, which are appropriate for teenagers, we simply explain, helping the staff members to understand how they can help the students to continue processing their experience when they return to school.  This programme is not held annually, but at times deemed appropriate after consultation with the college principals.