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Johny O'Donnell: a voice for youth and an aspiring politician

July 21st, 2010
By David Armstrong

Not all high school dropouts do so out of laziness. Johny is an example of one who chose to leave school early in order to focus, for now, on issues about which he's passionate - advocating for youth and giving them a voice on the political stage.

He's only 16, but this strapping, well-spoken Motueka lad is already making waves nationally with his leading role in the formation in 2009 of SAVE - for Students Against Violence Everywhere - which now has branches around the country. Recently SAVE received the top prize at the TrustPower Nelson Tasman community awards. (For more information about SAVE, see www.savemovement.org)

Johny lived in Motueka until this year, but his teenage school has been in Richmond and Nelson. Already breaking with conventional practice and showing signs of early maturity, after Year 6 at Motueka South School he chose to attend Waimea Intermediate School in Richmond.

He felt he wanted to go to a larger school that offered more opportunities, rather than two more years at primary school. He commuted daily by bus, which continued when he went on to Nelson College, and only this year moved his gear to flat in Nelson.

"A few of my friends thought they might move over (to Waimea) as well, and we managed to convince our parents somehow," he says. "Waimea Intermediate was just a brilliant school. They must have some of the best teachers in the world. They taught me a lot of what I do now; a lot of speaking skills, a lot of leadership skills. It prepared me really well for college.

"They helped me build an awareness of youth issues and a sense that you're allowed to speak out when you see things that are wrong. It helped me develop into a leadership role and mentored me."

A few months ago, half-way through this his second year at Nelson College, he decided that right now school was "not for me". He was wasting a lot of time and attendance was poor. "There was no point in me staying." He is officially unemployed, but is putting a lot of time into youth work and community work.

"People say you need an education. Well I intend to get an education, and a good one too. I want to go to university after I'm 20 as a mature student. I want to study political science, human behavious and psychology and that sort of stuff, but I have plenty to fill my time for the next four years. Plenty to do, plenty of opportunities to take up, plenty to learn. I'm keen on study, really keen on education, but school wasn't working for me."

At present he's applying to become New Zealand's first Kiwi Youth Ambassador through UNICEF. "That's a role I'm really interested in. It's built up through the experience of working in a lot of youth groups and seeing a lot of manipulation of young people's voices - not getting into the right places, not being heard, often very tokenistic.

"This role is an opportunity for one person in New Zealand supported by UNICEF to do things like go on a funded roadtrip talking to young people, or visit and research Youth Councils around the country and see how they run and how effective they are, and see how we can improve them, make recommendations around young people in local government." This will receive added impetus through the year coming up, from August 12th, being International Year of the Youth at the UN.

As well as helping drive SAVE, Johny is also doing some work with Regeneration, an organisation springing from the Enviroschools Foundation. Johny describes it as "a network of young change-makers. They are preparing a road trip to visit young people and facilitate things like workshops to get young people in their communities developing solutions to issues that we help them to identify."

This is an astounding amount and depth of community involvement for one so young, especially given he speaks as clearly and easily as a man in his 20s. Where did it start? What drives his desire to advocate so strongly and politically for young people?

"I'm not sure, but I do remember recently that I used to read the Tasman Youth Jam magazine, and I got really annoyed when they tried to use what you'd call 'youth language'. It was frustrating because you could see there was a real problem there, implying young people had low intelligence and couldn't read properly. They were trying to use real cool language and text. Adults talking down to kids. I was young and didn't know what I could do about it. They had good intentions and wanted to appeal to young people, but they just weren't doing it the right way."

As a result, much of his work is helping organisations to work with youth without talking down to them. "I find the gaps and try to fill them."

SAVE was a great example of this process. He and a friend had experienced the effects of violence on a friend of theirs and saw that there was a gap in how the problems of violence were being addressed. They didn't try to do this through any existing groups or structures, but quickly got together about 30 friends at school, and within six months there are branches all over New Zealand modelled on their structure. Their national conference in April drew 150 participants, including leading political figures.

He says they became aware of the pitfalls of seeing other, often well-meaning people trying to adopt young people's work within their own structures, use the energy for their own advantage, and claim it for their own. "We're still trying to work all that out."

Johny is involved with the Nelson Youth Council, which is very active. Currently the council of 20 is preparing a campaign to get young people to vote at the local body elections and run question-time forums for mayoral candidates. They've also planted thousands of trees and funded or sponsored several youth events.

"We're lucky to have a supportive city council, which Tasman don't seem to have. It makes a huge difference. Councillors are much fresher and younger than those on the Tasman District Council, and they allow us to have a direct voice. I know that the Motueka Youth Council are frustrated by their lack of voice on District Council matters regarding youth. The Nelson Youth Council even has a seat on the city council once every six weeks and have speaking rights."

Johny may well be returning to live in Motueka soon, and if he does he hopes to help the Youth Council here to press for improved influence in local body government.

The other big part of Johny's life now is his work with the Labour Party, for which he is on the Nelson electorate committee. Keenly aware of the need to work for changes through political channels, he chose to join Labour last year because he sees the party as "more passionate about their ideals but they don't let the pressures get to them. There's a place for complaining and there's a place for action, and they seem to get the balance between them right," he says.

He's an advocate of lowering the voting age to 16 and this year got a remit passed at the regional party conference to this effect.

He is quite open and relaxed about his goal of entering local body politics as a council candidate for Nelson or Tasman when he reaches 19, and then maybe into national politics if things go that way. "I'm in no hurry; we'll see where that takes me." Meanwhile, he has potential (paid) jobs coming up in youth work or youth trusts and programmes.

His main influences have been his parents. Divorced before he was born and both with strong but differing world views, they showed him "two very different sides of life, both very caring people, both passionate about their own beliefs, and that's taught me a lot about diversity of opinions and approaches".

"Also growing up in Mot has had a big influence on me. Compared with Nelson there's a lot less conflict, and it's a really strong community, not too big and not too small."

 
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