Teacher Anne Lynch (background) and student Cooper Castell-Spence.
Teacher Anne Lynch (background) and student Cooper Castell-Spence.
- Article provided by Environment Network Manawatū
Every week enthusiastic students from the Awatapu College special needs department attend “job club”.
Job club is a foundation skills opportunity for students with physical and cognitive difficulties, to undertake real-world “jobs” in the security of their familiar school environment.
The hour-long sessions are designed to prepare students for work placements in the community.
Here they learn skills that will help them fit into and thrive in the workplace, including organisation, working independently, attentiveness, and for those with capability, leadership.
At each session, with direction from teacher Anne Lynch and occupational therapist Lynsey Taylor, students are provided with a small number of jobs.
Two of these jobs undertaken on a regular voluntary basis are for Environment Network Manawatū (ENM), with both having a significant positive impact on the Manawatū community and environment.
The first job is to break-down bulk seed amounts donated by businesses, organisations and individuals, into many small packets, using a spoon. The type of seed and harvest date is written on each packet and then sorted into their various seed types.
Teacher aid Phoenix Reid and student Katelyn Flutey.
The packets are then collected from Awatapu College by ENM and used to restock the five seed libraries in Palmerston North; at the ENM office, the City Library, Te Patikitiki Library, Awapuni Library, and Roslyn Library.
The public are invited to take free seeds from the seed libraries to grow food in their own gardens, and to donate seed if they are able. This initiative is designed to support food resilience, food security, and food sovereignty in the community.
For the second job, students collect plastic container lids and sort them into the various plastic types according to their identification number i.e. two, four, five.
Once sorted, ENM collects the lids and sends them to local business Aotearoa NZ Made to be upcycled into plastic bags. These bottle lids would otherwise end up in landfill, as they cannot be recycled as part of the Palmerston North City Council’s kerbside collection.
ENM is appreciative of the teachers and students at job club for undertaking tasks each week that may otherwise not be done.
Not only does the completion of these tasks have an immediate positive impact on the community and environment, the workplace skills taught by the teachers and occupational therapist at job club have life-changing implications for the students.
Once students have acquired the skills and behaviours required for the workplace, they will transition to part-time work at community businesses and organisations for further work experience opportunities.
You can find out more about our container top recycling service and the opportunity to get involved by going to www.enm.org.nz
