A pot pourri of new student businesses

Pipi Johnson-Phillips has started a business publishing books promoting New Zealand sign language and care of the environment. Photo / Peter de Graaf

Student businesses offering everything from children's books and rongoā lollies to surf lessons and guided horse treks will be on show at a trade fair in Kerikeri next month.

It will be the first public outing for students taking part in the this year's Young Enterprise Scheme(YES), in which budding entrepreneurs create an innovative product or service, market it to the public, and end the year with a profit or loss.

YES Northland co-ordinator Gary Larkan said he expected about 150 students, from Bream Bay to Kaitaia, to showcase 50 businesses at Kerikeri's Old Packhouse Market on Saturday August 14.

This year's businesses included a fitness/healthy eating app, books designed for children with autism, rongoā (traditional medicine) lollies, horse treks in the hills around Panguru and jewellery made from pounamu off-cuts.

Sky Gundry, a 17-year-old Year 12 student at Kerikeri High School, has combined her love of surfing with a mission to empower young women. Her company, Sky's Surf School, aims to build a community of confident Northland wahine through exposure to the ocean and regular surf lessons.

Her lessons, at Taupō Bay and Matauri Bay, encouraged growth through risk-taking as well as better understanding of the natural environment.

She began in May, and had so far taught girls aged 6-14. She planned to expand to adult women after fielding a large number of enquiries.

Fellow KKHS Year 12 student Pipi Johnson-Phillips has published a children's book promoting use of New Zealand sign language, inspired by an encounter with a customer at her weekend job in a café.

''She was using sign language and I couldn't understand her. She got quite frustrated. If sign language was taught at primary schools there'd be more social inclusion," she said.

Her book used English text with key words in sign language, illustrated with photos by her uncle Adam Jones, a Kerikeri-based wildlife documentary-maker, telling the story of a whale shark's woes after eating plastic. Balancing the project with other schoolwork was difficult, but had taught her about time management, sign language and how to format a book.

All products and businesses will be on show at the YES Trade Fair on August 14, 8am-1.30pm.