Graeme Dingle Foundation Southern has an awesome team with big hearts and a can-do attitude. Today we put the spotlight on one of our newer members, Career Navigator Coordinator Alan Steele.
What does your role involve?
Although I’ve only been in this role for a few months, so far I have been facilitating workshops on life and employment skills (which culminated in students organising and executing a big community project to fundraise for a charity); organising worksite visits and coordinating the involvement of mentors to support the students. There is a lot more to my role, which I am constantly learning about.
What do you like most about working for Graeme Dingle Foundation Southern?
I love having the opportunity to help make a positive difference in the lives of young people who may be unsure about what they want to do post-school. I love the fact that the Graeme Dingle Foundation Southern puts the needs of the tamariki and rangatahi first in all of their different programmes.
In what ways do you see Career Navigator making a difference for the students that you work with?
Career Navigator gives the young people we work with valuable real-world skills that enable them to integrate more easily into the world of work. It also supports them to explore meaningful personal pathways that align with their skills, interests and values. The practical, hands-on approach of Career Navigator gives rangatahi the confidence and ability to pursue their own personal pathway post-school.
Do you have any words of wisdom you’d like to share?
One of my favourites is the Māori proverb: ‘He aha te mea nui o te ao? He tangata, he tangata, he tangata’ which means ‘What is the most important thing in the world? It is the people, it is the people, it is the people’.