12 Days of Christmas: Sources of Unconditional Love

This Christmas, the Herald is featuring 12 charities which have been chosen to get a $10,000 grant from Auckland Airport as part of its 12 Days of Christmas charity campaign. The $120,000 comes from generous travellers who donate money in globes throughout the airport.

Creating a world where young women feel empowered, inspired and confident in themselves is what SOUL is all about.

The charitable trust - Sources of Unconditional Love - has been working on building up teenage girls all around the country since it was established in 2015.

One of the programmes it runs is SOUL squads, where students in participating schools take part in workshops that help them talk about various issues affecting them - and encourage them to speak up.

Students later come together to deliver their messages and experiences at a special event next year.

The charity is one of 12 charities to get a $10,000 grant in this year's Auckland Airport 12 Days of Christmas charity initiative.

Development manager Kate Bruce said the money would go towards funding one Auckland-based SOUL squad for 12 months.

"Our SOUL squads work in secondary school as this is the age at which young adults start to define themselves in the world and we want to work at the source of change.

"Our campaigns are designed to create awareness in society. We want to show our squads that the world is changing and will be ready to greet them as they step into adulthood.

"We are not looking to create purely resilient future citizens. We want to nurture resilient, well-balanced, open, empathetic, kind and supported future adults.''

Bruce said lack of funding meant they had to turn schools away and were grateful to people and companies who supported their mission.

Auckland Airport spokeswoman Helen James acknowledged that their own company had a strong female workforce and were happy to support such a cause.

"We're excited that 50 young women will get the opportunity to be empowered by their individual uniqueness and strength as women."