A Tauranga man who has been building resilience and reducing at-risk behaviours in youth for 19 years has been named a semi-finalist in the Kiwibank New Zealand Local Hero of the Year Awards.
Dan Allen-Gordon, who is BOP regional manager for the Graeme Dingle Foundation, works to reduce at-risk behaviours – such as truancy, bullying, suicidal ideation and other risks – for young people to succeed.
He’s also raised $11.5 million to positively impact more than 42,000 young people via mentoring and value programmes in the last two decades.
One programme is Project K – where Year 10 students learn life skills, build confidence, and find direction and purpose during 14 months.
“There’s nothing more I would want to do than what I am doing.”
Working for the Graeme Dingle Foundation, Dan says he’s proud of what he sees every day.
Outside of work, Dan has been a Tauranga’s Sunrise Club rotarian for 14 years, and was a junior rugby referee for 15 years.
He doesn’t know who nominated him for the Kiwibank awards, but is honoured. It’s more about helping our rangatahi.
He says it takes a village to raise our rangatahi and that the problems youth face could be different if eligible adults stepped up as mentors.
Credit: sunlive.co.nz
