Who we are
Whāia tō ake ngākaunui, i te pono, i te mārama.
Know who you are, be who you are.
Our motto, gifted by Tīwhanawhana Trust
Our values/kaupapa
Proactively and respectfully honouring Te Tiriti o Waitangi
As the founding document, we recognise the importance of honouring Te Tiriti, and are incorporating this into our kaupapa, our work and our organisation.
Young people determine their journey
We know that young people are the experts when it comes to what they need and want, and we create the space for them to make that happen.
For youth, by youth
Our services, groups, events and organisation are made for youth, and are led by youth.
Affirming and empowering young people from all walks of life.
We affirm and empower young people of all abilities, religions, countries, communities and backgrounds.
Strengths-based advocacy
We know that our young people are brave, resilient, courageous, generous, and so many other great things. We advocate for and with them by focusing on those strengths.
We’re about fostering safe, inclusive, accepting and diverse environments that are sober, family friendly spaces.
Our 2024 strategy
Our strategy guides us to stay true to the outcomes we would like our work to achieve. These strategic plans are important to keep us focused on achieving short term goals which also work towards our vision in the long term. It also helps us evaluate ourselves and the opportunities presented to us to see if they align with what we are trying to achieve. Below are the four focus areas we’re prioritising until 2024.
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While most young people come to us for support, we want them to leave us with skills and tools to be successful in their lives. Some of the areas we intend to work on to achieve this include:
Building power for young people to be active advocates within their communities and for themselves.
Creating opportunities for young people to develop new skills.
Developing more employment support - both for getting young people into jobs, and advocacy for them at their workplace.
Utilising our corporate partnerships for opportunities for donations of knowledge and expertise in this area.
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Our communities need RainbowYOUTH to be a place where they can have their whole identity seen and uplifted. We intend to focus on this over the next three years across these areas:
Focus on partnerships and collaborations to enable intersectional work within Māori, Pacific, migrant and disabled communities.
Prioritise multicultural responsiveness through our services and staff and volunteer training.
Building Te Tiriti led activism in rainbow communities through education and community building.
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Our regional work has emerged over the last ~6 years and we have a lot of learnings to incorporate into a sustainable model of service provision in the regions. We have three key areas to focus on:
Development of a long term model/models of our work in the regions (led by local communities)
Presence of regional rainbow voices in our communications, advocacy and governance
Ongoing development of our regional services in response to the needs of local communities.
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We’ve had consistent feedback that it’s hard to find out about our services, and people wish they had known earlier. We want it to be easy for young people and whānau to find out about us and get in touch. We also recognise we need to be accountable to our communities about exactly what we’re doing, and how we’re using the generous donations and funding we receive. We have a few focusses to progress this area:
Transparency around our funding and internal work
Proactive use of media to advocate for issues faced by rainbow young people
Outcomes we deliver for young people are publicised
RainbowYOUTH is visible and present in relevant spaces and events
RainbowYOUTH resources are easily and widely accessible