At an Inspiring the Future event, young people hear from volunteer role models in their communities, learn about different jobs and why people love doing them, as well as their pathway and challenges they faced along the way. The programme is based on local and international research which shows that young people’s career aspirations are narrow and limited by unconscious bias.

Inspiring the Future relies on volunteer signing up to be role models.

Target audience

Volunteer role models

Anyone aged 18 or over can become a role model. The campaign targets people who are already interested in volunteering, and aims to convince them that Inspiring the Future is a good way to give back to their communities.

New Zealanders generally do not like to “toot their own horn”, so people often think their job or story is not interesting enough to share. However, the programme needs a wide range of role models, so students can see the many careers available to them, and can meet role models like themselves.

Schools

The campaign also encourages schools to sign up to the programme and host an event for their students.

Campaign approach

The campaign encourages people to sign up to be Inspiring the Future role models. It gives a light-hearted peek at what you might experience as a role model at an Inspiring the Future event.

The lead video advertisement shows role models being interviewed by a panel of school children about their career, with the tag line ‘Take your career back to school’. The supporting website and social advertisements play off this tagline, showing the role models posed at an old-school style desk against a school photo backdrop.

The role models in the campaign represent a diverse range of New Zealanders from a range of jobs and industries, so as many people as possible can relate to them, and see that they too can be a role model for tamariki.

Videos

Social media ads

Print ads

Inspiring the Future Aotearoa