A draft timetable for Involve 08 is now available

Conference MC's:

NZAAHD's youth advisory group members Rise E Tu will MC Involve, along with the infamous Tofiga of the Laughing Samoans.

Keynotes will include:

Dr Anne-Marie Tupuola, Justin Duckworth, Lloyd Martin and Pahia Turia. Biographies are below.

Lloyd Martin

Lloyd and his wife Anthea have four adult children, they are part of the Cannons Creek community in Porirua, where they have both worked as teachers and youth workers for twenty five years. They have shared their home with young people from the community, coordinated youth services, and have been involved in supporting young people in education within and outside of the mainstream over that time.

Lloyd is the author of several books around youth work and cross cultural
communication. He holds a masters degree in education (Victoria University)
and currently coordinates Praxis, a network of practitioners in youth and
community work, which exists to train and mentor youth workers in New
Zealand and the Pacific Islands.

Pahia Turia (Ngati Apa, Nga Rauru, Atihaunui-a-paparangi)

Director of Te Mana Atatu in Whanganui, Pahia is a trained teacher with expertise in social services. His work in Whanganui has included community, whanau, hapu and iwi developent and Maori education. He has been involved with youth projects on suicide, alcohol and drugs. He is an interesting and thought-provoking speaker.

Dr Anne-Marie Tupuola

Dr Tupuola is a New Zealander of Samoan descent. Her background is in human development, adolescent development, adolescent psychology, global youth studies and indigenous, immigrant and diasporic youth cultures. Her research interests include adolescent ethnic, personal and sexual identity formation processes as well as designing indigenous, cross-cultural and trans-national participatory and community-based qualitative research methods. Some of her work critically analyses universal psychological models of adolescent identity formation with particular interest in their application to the mental well-being of indigenous, mixed ethnic and diasporic youth. Her PhD explored the ambiguities of the achieved identity status as well as the diverse ways young people from adverse backgrounds were reaching their ultimate sense of self. Her post-doctoral research conducted in New York explored youth resilience and personal identity formation processes, leading to work with diverse youth of African, Asian, Black, Pacific, Chicano, Hispanic and Latino backgrounds, youth street gangs and youth from impoverished neighbourhoods.

Anne-Marie has lectured and designed tertiary courses in various countries (NZ, UK, USA) in the areas of human development, adolescent psychology, research methods, multi-ethnic education, gender studies, art education and youth cultures. She was a Fulbright Scholar affiliated with Columbia, Harvard and New York Universities as well as a Visiting Professor at Teachers College, Columbia University where she received an Outstanding Teacher Award teaching post-graduate courses. Dr Tupuola presently lives in London, England where she was Research Fellow for an ESRC funded project on the social processes of youth resilience at the Centre for Psychiatry, Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine, QMUL. This study led her to work in East London with young people of predominantly Pakistani, Bangladeshi, African and Muslim backgrounds. Anne-Marie is currently self-employed as an independent scholar, freelance writer and global researcher/educator and consultant. Her special interests are in developing global exchange initiatives for young people, and promoting youth directed projects for youth themselves both locally and globally. She is also heavily involved in voluntary work for youth from diverse cultures that includes mentoring, tutoring, facilitation, advocacy and advisory roles.

Dr Tupuola’s publications explore youth suicide, indigenous, immigrant and diasporic youth identities, gender and cultural relations, youth resilience, youth and popular culture, adolescent mental health, ethnic and sexual and personal identities as well as indigenous, cross-cultural and trans-national research methods.

Justin Duckworth

Justin has been working in grass roots youth and community work for the
last 20 years. He has pioneered and developed different projects over this
time. A driving passion through all these projects has been a desire to
see young people equipped and encouraged to work together for a just
world. He works part time as a community educator for Global education
Centre. Justin has also dabbled in teaching, street performing, marathon
running and community theatre. He lives in the beautiful Reikorangi Valley
at Ngatiawa, with his family and others.

Also featured:

Hon. Nanaia Mahuta, Minister for Youth Affairs The Minister has tribal affiliations to Waikato-Maniapoto and Nga Puhi. She has been an MP since 1996, and the Minister for Youth Affairs since October 2005.