Turia salutes youth

Minister of Community and Voluntary Sector Tariana Turia today, on International Youth Day, commended the country's youth for their significant contribution to bettering New Zealand communities.

"Around the world nations are celebrating International Youth Day and the contribution youth make.

"I salute our youth and I'm even more proud of them when I hear they are more likely than average to volunteer for marae, youth services and welfare and child sponsorship."

Data from Nielsen Media Research shows that young people are active as volunteers.

"There's a misconception that our young people don't do voluntary work and dig into their pockets to give to charity, when about 50 per cent of them actually do.

In 2007, 50 percent of young people (aged 10-19) supported community organisations through doing one or more of volunteering, donating, or other types support (equating to 312,000 young people).

About 104,000 young people volunteered for a community organisation, 166,000 made ad-hoc donations to appeals and 87,000 made committed donations.

"This data tells me that our young have a social conscience, that they are interested in the decisions that government makes on their behalf - and I take my hat off to them for that."