Ara Taiohi

Youth worker by trade, story teller, facilitator & teacher, Mum ?, person you should be nervous about giving the mic to.

I’ve been a youth worker since I was a youth, loving community grass-roots mahi and also youth mental health. I love to awhi youth workers by training, resourcing and listening.

One of my favourite youth work stories is when I used to work on a campsite in Australia helping to run activities for young people on camps. One afternoon I was hanging out by a lake running a raft building activity. We were all having a good time until a HUGE SNAKE started angrily speed-slithering it’s slimy snake body right towards me! Y’know that fight or flight thing? Turns out my reaction was to FIGHT! …a snake!! Lucky for all of us, one of the young people was a quality Aussie snake whisperer who knew how to lure the snake away. We were all safe… But that’s why training for youth workers is so important!