Working with community groups and young people to care for our environment.
The ARO project invites groups to Assess, Reduce and Offset their environmental impact while creating positive outcomes for young people and communities.
The Story
Praxis was challenged that our organization could do better in caring for the environment — not just in preparing youth workers for working in a changing climate, but in the organization’s real impacts on the environment.
Aro is nine years old and is the moko of Lloyd Martin (past Co-Leader of Praxis).
Aro inspired our ARO project. For us, she personifies the connection and responsibility we feel towards the next generation. Our young people will inherit a world with significant environmental challenges that they have contributed very little towards. The ARO project believes that the act of mitigating problems like climate change should resource and empower the communities and people who will be at the frontline of this crisis.
We invite you to join us in responding to the climate crisis
Through the ARO project a group of church and community organisations in Aotearoa NZ are partnering with Praxis in doing our bit for the planet. The three challenges of ARO are:
Assess — Become aware of the impact our organisation is having on the environment, and raise awareness among young people we work with.
Reduce — Find ways to reduce our impact on the environment by reducing waste and making better use of our natural resources.
Offset — Support projects that both reduce our carbon emissions and involve young people in the process.
Each year the Praxis team and students complete practical projects with young people to reduce waste and restore natural environments.
Projects
The initiatives we support are normally coordinated by youth and community workers, or by young people themselves. They seek to improve the local environment while improving the global situation; by planting vegetation to absorb carbon emissions, reducing or recycling waste, restoring a natural ecosystem, or helping a community change a practice that is bad for the environment.
We invite community groups who are developing environmental projects with young people to contact us to discuss how to get involved.
Donations to overseas projects are not eligible for tax deduction.
Aro Day 2023
Each year at Praxis our team and students set aside a day for talanoa, learning and mahi on the land. There are many creative responses to the environmental crisis, and the range of events at our ARO days across the country reflected this.
Wellington
The ARO project is all about assessing, reducing and offsetting our environmental impact and ARO day encompasses this kaupapa. But ARO day is also about more than this. It’s about coming together as a community and spending time in nature for the better of the environment, it’s about connecting with the whenua and leaving it better off. This year on ARO day, the Wellington students headed to Porirua harbour. We learnt a little bit of the history of it, the importance of the Habour to Tangata Whenua and the impacts the growth of the city has had on sealife and kaimoana. Our main task was to do a rubbish clean up - the. importance of this being highlighted when Miriam found a bread tag from 2015! The morning showed the shore scattered with students wanting to do their part. By the end we had got 13 bags of rubbish off the harbour in just over an hour.
Wellington Yr2 Grace Webster
Christchurch
Aro day is all about taking responsibility and care towards the environment around us. For our Aro day in Christchurch, we went to one of our local beaches, New Brighton beach and did a beach clean-up. It was such a great way to start the day! After our beach clean-up, we watched a Documentary by Sir David Attenborough called Extinction: The Facts, where we learned about the environmental issues around the world such as deforestation, climate change with the effects it is having on our planet, animal extinctions, loss of biodiversity, effects of plastic in the ocean. We then had a Talanoa to discuss what stood out to us in that documentary and how we can be more sustainable towards our environment by the choices we make in our day to day lives, as well as in our youth work practice. Here is a whakatauki about the environment to think about. “Toitū te marae a Tāne, Toitū te marae a Tangaroa, Toitū te tangata”-If the land is well and the sea is well, the people will thrive.
Christchurch Yr1 Studnt Sienna Ransfeild.
Whanganui
Being on Taranaki Maunga with the Maunga Project for ARO day was amazing. We got to go a bit bush, pick paths through a mini swamp, scale a tiny baby cliff, cross an icy river and learn about traps and edible plants. We learned about the history of the pests that are destructive to our native species on the maunga and how the Maunga Project is working towards the goal of predator free by 2050. We got to awhi this goal by helping check the traps and resetting them. One thing that stood out to me was the encouragement. Everyone was on different levels of comfort or discomfort. Even when we had to do the crazy things, like crossing the river, the way everyone championed each other was really significant. It felt safe to step out into the challenge zone. The maunga project crew was so welcoming and keen to impart the knowledge they have on us. The whole day was so fun and I loved learning about a way we can help in restoring our whenua.
Taranaki Yr1: Eden Murray
Auckland
The Tamaki Makaurau crew spent the morning visiting Critical Pixels design Limited. We got to experience how Critical Pixels transform plastic waste into beautiful and durable 100% recycled plastic panels and other form of furniture. It was an amazing experience for our Praxis whanau to see how plastic gets transformed into something really useful! We then headed to Ihumataō where we journeyed on a mini hikoi and learnt the history about Ihumataō, we were also lucky to get our hands into the soil of. We were humbled and blessed by hearing the stories Pania Newton and her team shared about their papakāinga here at Ihumataō. Our praxis whanau left the grounds feeling grounded and refreshed gaining knowledge about the kaupapa at Ihumataō. A very grateful and peaceful feeling that we were able to help plant over 300 rakau and also be able to feel and be in the warmth of the ahi at Ihumataō. Something about being outdoors is very beneficial for our well-being, we often find our selves being indoors most times so being outside in the cold air was refreshing for us! Really excited to see our rakau come to life in the next few years 🌱💚
Auckland Yr2 Student: Vilemina Taavao
Waikato
