What Does A Teenager Know?

What Does A Teenager Know?

When you're a teenager, you're 10 feet tall and bullet proof.
So it's no wonder the terrible weather during Youth Week didn't stop 19 year old bestselling author (www.youshutup.co.nz) and international speaker Eva-Maria making her way around New Zealand to speak to the parents, teachers, youth workers and students who came out despite the rain to hear Eva-Maria present about Claiming Your Space in the world as a teen, and how to Trust Your Future as an adult, among today's teenagers.

Youth leader, supporter of various charities, and known as a teen revolutionary, Eva-Maria once again contributed to the success of New Zealand Youth Week - an annual campaign aimed at celebrating young people and their achievements, May 22 - 30 2010. Visit www.nzaahd.org.nz for more information.

Having started the tour on Thursday 20th May in Auckland, and finishing up in Nelson on Friday 28th May, Eva-Maria juggled media interviews and visits to city councils, memorial halls, schools, libraries, youth centres, and other venues to share her research and knowledge about the younger generations. Her visits ignited stronger relationships between community libraries and neighbouring schools, and even attracted parents, some of which had to skip work to attend the presentation!

"It was so, so amazing to see the communities coming together to support young people. I couldn't believe it - some cities even got their mayor to come just to introduce me at the event. But the most important thing to me was that people understood what I was saying; some saw a different perspective, and many went away with some very set actions they could apply the same day to improve a relationship. That was so cool - to have people telling me that they can't wait to get home and try out my ideas! And I'm already getting e-mails and TXTs from people telling me these ideas are working! Wow!" said Eva-Maria when asked about the overall feeling of the tour.

Among the cities that Eva-Maria visited are Auckland, Thames, Paeroa, Waihi, Hamilton, Wellington and Nelson, delivering her message in front of 13 different audiences, including the BUILD Conference (Auckland) and a sold out workshop at the OSCAR Conference (Wellington).

This year's Youth Week theme was based around the relationships between young people and their families and whanau in our wider communities, and Eva-Maria is contributing greatly to this with her work of improving relationships between youth and adults. She appeared in front of over 1000 adults and teens over the course of her tour, which will of course be counting towards her mission of helping improve 10 million relationships between adults and teenagers around the world! Find out more and be part of mission at www.eva-maria.co.nz

NZAAHD's Youth Week Project Manager & close colleague Njela Sharrock comments: "This is exactly what Youth Week is about - to be empowering our society to improve communication between generations, especially with our young people. Having personally known Eva-Maria and calibre of her work, we're very excited to be supporting young people like herself take on so much initiative and put on some great events for Youth Week!. Every year, Youth Week is getting bigger and better, and we are excited to see what the future holds for Youth Week while we have so many amazing young people and adults contributing to events around the country to make Youth Week what it is."

ENDS

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