Future Aspirations

This morning, the Y7 & 8s had the privilege of listening to three different speakers. All of the speakers talked about Future Aspirations. When the day began, I didn’t know that they were coming or why but afterwards, I was glad they came. Mr Burt introduced all the visitors before handing it over to Andrew Pattison who is a man who helps youth and young people along the way so that can achieve their dreams.

Mr Pattison started off by talking to us about a Yr 9 student at Manurewa College who gets paid for speaking in front of people. His name is Ivana and in 2013, he was one of the shiest boys in his class but now he talks in seminars in front of very important people. We got to watch one of his speeches and he talked about how in primary and intermediate, his report looked like, “Below standard, below standard, below standard, wait what, WELL below standard?”

The first speaker was Anthony Samuels, former presenter on kids TV Show What Now and father of four boys. He taught us a Maori saying, “To Miharo Hoki” which means, “You are Amazing” Mr Samuels taught us how to say, “You are Amazing” in sign language. Also, “Your past doesn’t have to determine your future” which means just because you do something bad one day, you don’t have to be bad the next.

The next speaker was Paula. he told us a story of when he nearly died while swimming in a race. He passed out from swallowing too much water and when he was conscious again, all the school was laughing at him. Paula didn’t go back to swimming till he was in high school because he was too embarrassed. He told us to always take risks at anything, even if we don’t think we are good at it, we should always try. Paula also told us about Lisa Carrington, a young New Zealander who got a Gold medal in the 2012 Olympics. She didn’t start canoeing till she was 17 years old, she didn’t know she wanted to be an Olympic Canoer, but look at her now.

Our last speaker was Amelia. She is a tongan student who is studying at AUT wanting to become a fashion designer and start her own label. In high school, everyone put her down because her brothers had been in gangs and had dropped out. Everyone thought that she was just like them but she wanted to prove that she is a different person, with her own life and she plans to do big things. She wanted us to remember, “Don’t let anyone push you back or stop you from doing something you want to do”