OPINION: More energy needed for our teens

TRAGEDY: Regardless of their trouble-making past, two young people are dead, and two families left grieving.

It's been a tough week in Wairarapa.

It seems everyone has an opinion about Hoani Korewha and Pacer Willacy-Scott, killed when the stolen car they were passengers crashed on Queen St.

I couldn't get over how young the boys looked in their photos -- barely more than children.

Firstly, I will admit I have felt disheartened by some of the attitudes shown following their deaths. The Times-Age website and Readers' pages have been peppered with words like "losers", "suicide by stupidity", "got their comeuppance".

I don't think anyone can deny these young men made a bad choice. But two young people are dead. Two families grieving. To call a newspaper and say these boys "won't be missed" is simply uncharitable.

What I have found upsetting has been the vitriol towards youth leaders Alan Maxwell and Hope Sexton, who spoke of their experiences with the boys, who seemed to be making positive changes.

They were involved with the youth groups, continuing their education and showing potential for leadership. Pacer had even won an award for contribution to St John Ambulance.

For sharing their stories, Alan and Hope were accused of "namby-pamby attitudes" and criticised for defending "thieving scumbags". We say we need solutions to youth disengagement, and yet we lash out at the very people who tried to steer these boys towards a better path.

Our front page story also concerns troubled youth. At the House of Hope, Nadine Allen has spent several years caring for young women from disadvantaged backgrounds, some of whom were making destructive choices.

Even when these girls played up, Nadine showed them kindness and compassion. And many have gone on to lead fulfilling, purposeful lives.

As psychologist Russell Barkley put it, "the children who need love the most will ask for it in the most unloving ways".

Throughout Wairarapa, there are young people with the deck stacked against them, generationally and socioeconomically. Those who have slipped through the cracks of the system. Those who have been consistently told their race makes them lazy, their academic abilities make them inferior, their people's history means nothing.

For this reason, we need people like Alan, Hope and Nadine to mentor our youth. To provide them with opportunities to contribute, such as painting a mural, planting a garden, or digging a hangi. To invest in their lives when others write them off as thugs, delinquents and lost causes.

And, if anything, this situation has shown us more energy needs to be poured into youth resources, not less.

I feel for the people of Featherston whose lives were impacted by poor behaviour. But when did it become "namby-pamby" to reach out to hurting people? When did it become noble to hide behind a computer screen and say someone is better off dead than in jail?

If we want to see change in this community, we need to do better than that.