The Rangatahi Kai Club's belly is growing to feed kids more than just cooking skills at the after-school programme.

Starting up a year ago, Welcome Bay Community Centre's Rangatahi Kai club offers 10-15 year-olds cooking and life skills.

After identifying there was a need for youth to have something to do after-school in the Welcome Bay area, youth worker Sharron Malcom initiated the Rangitahi Kai Club with the community centre.

'[The club is] open to 10-15 year olds who want to learn some life skills, build some really positive relationships, friendships and who need a bit of mentoring support from positive adults in their life,” says WBCC manager Sacha Harwood.

'We started with cooking because it's an activity that has good life skills behind it but is also easy to get engagement because kids like food after school.”

Kai and more

Sacha says the club is looking to be renamed from ‘Rangatahi Kai Club' to purely ‘Rangatahi Club' as it will focus on broader life skills to support the kids' diverse range of needs.

'We've done a little bit of a review in the last couple months and expanded some of the activities to include other creative areas such as different types of art,” says Sacha. 'They're doing diamond painting at the moment and they'll do canvas painting and some sports as well.”

A garden club is also going to start up where kids will learn to grow plants from seedlings, care for growing vegetables and how to use them in food.

Greater engagement

Engaging kids in their education is another focus of the club, says Sacha. 'If anyone's having difficulties at school, difficulties getting into alternative education, or general problems with engagement – we'll try work with them and their whanau to ensure they have support and can follow that process to get back into being engaged in education.”

Sacha says there has been amazing success stories with kids re-engaging in education. 'Kids who have felt like they haven't had a voice and seeing them empowered through that process and able to take charge of their life, their direction and goals – that's been really encouraging to see.”

Sacha says the community centre is low on volunteers and is looking for consistent volunteers to support the club.

'Once we have a really good volunteer base then we can grow and reach even more kids…and provide solid, ongoing mentoring, support and consistency for the group,” says Sacha.

The club runs on Mondays 4pm-5.30pm. For more information on volunteering, email: communitycentre@welcomebay.org.nz