Just Focus

Vision / Mission / Goals

Just Focus is a network for young people, by young people, focusing on issues that affect us in Aotearoa New Zealand, the Pacific, and globally.

The goals of the network are responsible global citizenship and change for a just world. We are committed to the full participation of young people to inform and develop the network's content, style and direction.

Just Focus connects a community of young people and provides a way to: - Be active in becoming informed about issues facing the world today. - Discuss these topics with other like-minded young people. - Provide inspiration and tools to take action.

We run a website which supports an online community of young people; a way to connect with others, gain information and express yourself through the forums, writing and art.

We run national and regional events, and local groups in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch to offer young people a way to get together, train, discuss global issues and have some fun.

Just Focus is administered and supported by the Global Education Centre (www.globaled.org.nz).

What we currently do in the way of marketing

We have a website, established in consultation with a group of young people, which is the focus point of the project. We've produced posters and postcards to advertise the website and other parts of the project. These are handed out at youth events and in our other work with the Global Education Centre.

We also work with youth magazines Tearaway and Jet to produce articles written by young people on global issues, which hopefully points them back to the website!

Message to Students / How you can help

We need you.

We have a project with fantastic potential. It provides young people with a way to develop awareness of what's going on in the world, and how that affects them right here. It provides opportunities to take action and express their opinions in whatever way they feel comfortable, be it a sternly-worded post on a forum or through a loudhailer in a protest. And we want to grow the project too, provide more spaces for young people to get together and do something about the injustices they see in the world.

But what we need is a way to tell people about what we do, we need a way to convince them that Just Focus is a project that's worthwhile. Teenagers have a million things to think about - school, jobs, the sports teams or bands they play in, a social life, home life, not to mention the somewhat frightening idea of the future - so we need a marketing tool that is going to cut through all of that and convince them Just Focus might be worth their time.

And what better person to design that tool for us than someone not so fresh out of school themselves?