Each year, the future young leaders from secondary schools across Auckland are invited to share a day, meeting students from other schools and being inspired by stories from those who make a difference. The theme for this year was ‘Super Heroes.’

Year 13 student reporters, Shaan Bone, Mabel Ye and Djon Pye report on their day.

‘Superheroes. How to be a superhero. At the 2013 National Youth Leaders Day, which the prefect team for 2013 attended recently, we learnt that not all superheroes have a cape and wear their undies outside of their tights. We learnt that every day we meet a variety of heroes, whether they are coaches, teachers, parents or siblings.  And we too can be heroes. We learnt that one does not have to save the world but being a hero can be asking a friend how their day was, or picking up rubbish.

Throughout the day we listened to entertaining and enlightening speakers such as Carol Hirschfeld, former host of 3 News; Sharon Hunter ,the director of the Starship Foundation; Tearepa Kah,i the director of Mount Zion; and Nathan May, a speaker from the Attitude  organisation. We were also privileged to enjoy a performance by New Zealand singer and songwriter, Jamie McDell.

The most inspirational address was from Cam Calkoen. He told his own heart-warming story about the difficulty he experienced when growing up. His anecdotal story described how he was afraid to compete in his high school athletics day and overcame all of the people who doubted him. He developed into a world athletic champion and travelled the world to share his story. What made his story so incredible was that he suffered from cerebral palsy . When he was younger, he was told by doctors that he would never walk or talk properly and would live a life dependent on others.  Cam Calkoen was incredibly inspirational to all of us. Young Leaders’ Day was an amazing day where we all learnt a lot about people  and we were all inspired to try to become better leaders ourselves both now and in the future. We were encouraged to all be heroes in our own rights.’

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