Protect our youth: Make Wellington’s streets safe!

Aotearoa New Zealand should be a place where young people can experience life and make memories while being safe and protected. Wellington should be a city where our young people can have fun in a safe environment, without the fear of harm. 

Sadly, that’s not the case. A recent Salient survey revealed 75% of students have felt unsafe in a Wellington nightclub, and many highlighted concerning safety issues they'd faced travelling to and from the city at night and the lack of safe transport options. [2,3]

-Rachel (22)

Young people and our communities know what the issues are and what solutions will work for us. That's why we want WCC to work with us - especially those that are often the target of harm such as our ethnic communities, queer communities, disabled communities and more. 

We are asking them to:

We truly believe that a wide-scale cross-community project would be a great first step for youth wellbeing and safety. We would start by engaging with communities on things that impact our safety - like transport, de-escalation skills, nightlife culture, safe spaces, accessibility, and cultural attitudes. 

In the meantime, there are already some solutions the WCC could action now, such as:

Mayor Tory Whanau has asked for a refreshed city safety plan now that the Pōneke Promise is coming to an end.[6] We want to make sure the new plan includes a project focussed on the wellbeing and safety of our young people, and reducing harm in the inner city. 

In late 2020, local communities raised concerns about the safety in central Wellington. At the start of 2021 the Wellington Alliance Against Sexual Violence - a coalition of youth-led organisations hosted a rally on Courtney place calling on WCC and its partners to prioritise sexual violence prevention. [3,4] WCC listened and created Pōneke Promise which widened its focus on making ‘central Wellington safe, vibrant and welcoming”[5]

Now that a new plan is being made, we need to make sure WCC listens to our communities again and delivers what we as young people need - Safer streets!

Join us and together we can create a better future for young people!

We would like to acknowledge Luke Smith. Who we lost too early and who brought us all together to fight for a better future for our young people. Because of Luke Smith we are demanding that the wellbeing and the safety of our young people are put as priority by the Wellington City Council. 

This petition we created in consultation with Luke Smith’s family. If you would like to support the family in bringing their son back home to South African for his funeral please click here for their givealittle.

Interview with bFM: https://95bfm.com/bcast/get-action-protect-our-youth-make-wellington%E2%80%99s-streets-safe-w-rachel-jaboon-from-vasda 

References