Need remains in the community for North Canterbury youth
By DAVID HILL, Local Democracy Reporter
A North Canterbury education leader is calling on government funders to focus on ‘‘needs, not rules’’.
Comcol (formerly Community College) North Canterbury is going ahead with its new ‘‘Grow’’ programme next month, while funding is still being finalised.
But general manager Kate O’Connor said the Tertiary Education Commission’s Youth Guarantee funding criteria made it difficult for organisations like hers to meet the needs in the community.
Comcol has been operating in North Canterbury for more than 30 years offering an alternative education options ‘‘for those whose needs are not being met by the mainstream school system’’.
It suspended its Youth Guarantee funded education programmes at the end of 2021 due to rising compliance costs.
‘‘We have continued to see a need in the community for somewhere for young people to go to and build their self-confidence and self-esteem to take that next step,’’ O’Connor said.
Comcol North Canterbury ran an eight-week pilot of the new Grow programme in term four last year.
The new 12-week course will start on February 7 at the Comcol Rangiora site and will be offered in each of the four terms this year.
The Grow programme will teach resilience, wellbeing, food security and sustainability.
Skills included cooking, budgeting, preparing a CV, barista training and driver’s licence courses.
It will centre on growing food and preparing it in the kitchen and there will be flexibility to support student goals, including supporting them into work experience.
It has been made possible thanks to community-based funding and O’Connor was optimistic more funding will be secured in the coming weeks.
She would like to see ‘‘Grow’’ rolled out to other Comcol sites around the South Island, if funding can be secured.
O’Connor said the course could work in with the Mayor’s Taskforce for Jobs (MTFJ) programme, being introduced in Waimakariri this year.
‘‘Some of our graduates may be able link with MTFJ, as this course will prepare them for the workforce.’’
While Comcol has retained its category one provider status registration with the New Zealand Qualifications Authority, it would not be able to offer NCEA credits until it had sufficient resourcing.
But Comcol North Canterbury was working with Rangiora High School to offer equine studies this year, as international students returned.
Other options were also being explored with Comcol’s partners and a Koha Shed, in collaboration with Rangiora High School, was providing surplus produce to families in need.
The free mentoring Youth Service was also continuing to be offered across all of Comcol’s South Island sites.
■ Public interest journalism is funded by New Zealand on Air.
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Update to Neighbourly members on data breach 06/01/2025 8am
Yesterday in the High Court at Auckland, Neighbourly was successful in being granted an injunction against any unauthorised use of the data taken in a recent breach.
As we alerted you on January 1 and confirmed on January 3, our systems were accessed illegally and members’ information, including names, email addresses, GPS coordinates from the address you provided to us, forum posts and direct member communications were among the data that was accessed.
We acted immediately upon hearing of a potential breach: we temporarily disabled the site, notified members and authorities and worked with our external security consultants to understand if and how it had occurred. We then confirmed the breach with members, safely restored the site to service and began the process of seeking the injunction. Yesterday’s decision by Justice Johnstone prohibits the use of the data by any unauthorised person, and requires them to permanently delete it, or any information obtained from it.
This does not mean that vigilance against scammers is not still required: there is a large industry globally that seeks to use stolen information for identity fraud or to dupe people into providing details of their financial affairs for theft. Again, to keep yourself safe from scammers it is critical that you:
- Don’t click links in emails. Instead, type the web address directly into your browser. This helps ensure you’re visiting a real site, not a fake one
- Enable two-factor authentication where available as this adds an extra layer of security to your data
- Stay alert for phishing emails. Be cautious of unexpected emails asking for personal information, especially ones that create a sense of urgency.
Again, we want to apologise to you for this illegal access to the Neighbourly database and to assure you that we have carefully worked through how this occurred. We have safely secured the site and its services for use and ensured we have robust processes in place so this cannot happen again.
We are continuing to work with the relevant authorities, including the National Cyber Security Centre, on any further steps we need to take.
If you have any further questions please contact us via our customer support team at helpdesk@neighbourly.co.nz.
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