Source: Radio New Zealand
RNZ / Mark Papalii
Tano Uilelea has been working towards his Restricted Licence with Youth Inspire for just over a year. He said he’s had amazing support from the Driving School and from his mum.
With their support the learners test “wasn’t really hard,” he said, and his confidence is building as he prepares for the practical test for his restricted licence.
“I reckon having a licence is really important for, yeah, especially finding jobs. Like, there’s a lot of jobs that need motors and yeah, just because we live in a world of illegal drivers, like kids our age just driving, just for the sakes of driving without a licence.”
Tano Uilelea. RNZ / Mark Papalii
Uilelea said that attitude is widespread among his friends.
“The boys think it’s cool to illegally drive. Not saying names, but yeah they think it’s just because we live in New Zealand that legally driving is just a free thing, but yeah, getting your licence is really important because you never know, one day you might just get pulled over randomly.”
Youth Inspire has been running a Driving School in the Hutt Valley for more than seven years, during which time over 1200 young people have come through its doors.
Māori and Pacific young people hold drivers licence’s at much lower rates than their Pākehā counterparts and the charity believes that’s locking them out of employment opportunities.
Zainab Ali. RNZ / Mark Papalii
Youth Inspire CEO Zainab Ali said rangatahi who aren’t driving on their correct licences are often referred to the program by local police.
“We are very blessed because we are funded to provide the service for free to rangatahi, they don’t pay anything including their testing fees. So I think the need for the service is, you know the largest it’s ever been.
“Our demand, our waiting lists are you know, really full and that’s a great sign because it means more and more rangatahi want to get their license, want to do it the right way,” she said.
Ali said the program is currently funded through Waka Kotahi’s Road Safety Fund.
“Unfortunately, we have heard that we have been denied further funding for the next three years. We just found out two weeks ago, so that’s a big blow to this community. So Youth Inspire and our governance members were working through how we can resolve that, how we can continue to provide this service to our community without that funding.”
The rising costs of fuel is also becoming a concern for Youth Inspire, but Ali said they invested in driving school vehicles in the past that are low cost in terms of fuel usage and one which is electric.
“Day-to-day when we fill our tanks up we can absolutely see the rise in cost and we are predicting that there will be a general rise in cost across all products and services, which means that even the price to power our electric car will rise, the cost of resources, you know, and all of the things that come with running a driving school is going to rise as well.”
Ali believes the importance of a driving licence to a young person is often underestimated, as it opens up a larger pool of job opportunities.
“The demand is higher than ever before and I worry that if a driving school that’s not free for the rangatahi in our community, if we didn’t exist it’s going to leave a huge gap and I can guarantee we will see a rise in road-related offences for young people in our community.”
‘They’re breaking the cycle’
Driving School Manager Kinder Khakh said there are currently 15 young people preparing for their learners test, with 20 more training for their restricted or full licences.
Many rangatahi have been driving illegally, so there is a need to help them get their licence sorted before they get into justice system, he said.
Driving School Manager Kinder Khakh. RNZ / Mark Papalii
“Some people just don’t actually have ability to go to VTNZ and get their license sorted, some people are just too anxious to go there seeing the big bright orange building and seeing the big bright yellow building at AA. It’s hard for them to go there on their own and some people they don’t even have any licence in the household. So I have encountered, I have seen people doing the learners and restricted through us and they’re first in the family. They’re breaking the cycle, they want to get a job, they don’t want to sit around.”
Khakh said with around 70 percent of jobs requiring a driver’s licence it’s a huge barrier, coupled with the second barrier of cost.
“When they come here the first thing they ask how much does it cost? When we tell them it’s free, then they say oh, what’s the catch? And they always kind of asking for that to start with because it’s a huge thing because the licence costs a lot, it’s $96 for learners license and some people getting their licence replaced.”
Khakh said the majority of jobs who ask for a licence are checking for reliability and more often then not they will go for someone who has a car and a licence rather than someone who relies on public transport to get to and from work.
It’s a privilege to help the young people achieve what they need to be and what they can because they have so much potential, he said.
“I think Youth Inspire is the only community driving school in the Hutt Valley and that caters to a lot of young people within the community here and for me why is this so [meaningful] to me is I’m the first person in my family to have a license and a car and we never had this kind of programs.”
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
