It has been such an amazing privilege working with nearly 7k children over the last 13 years under the Confident Me Programme. In the same breath that a lot of time, effort and constant hard work have left us feeling somewhat depleted and overwhelmed. At other times, inspired and privileged. We’ve spent incredibly long hours working on our research on child development in the hopes of consistently improving what we do. As a team, we had collectively decided on what our next steps are, moving forward. Despite loving what we do, we came to realise that it is difficult work that sometimes does not have a lot of pay off.
In an effort to make people understand our dilemma, we’ve listed down some of our major roadblocks:
1. Getting sufficient funding to support our work for the youth has often led to minimal outcomes that made us realise how facilitating physical sessions in schools and out of school may not be sustainable in the long run.
2. We try to charge a minimal rate for schools because we understand that some are not financially equipped to offer our program on top of their running expenses. Hence, Maia Dreams (our company) have had to contend with getting $7 per hour pay. This prompted us to raise our rates recently as it was an imperative move for us to be able to cover our basic needs. Despite delivering 20-30 hour per program fir the sessions, we need to put on additional 30-40 work hours to facilitate reports, creating resources, connecting with schools, parents, buying supplies and organising opportunities for our students.
3. Many parents of our past and present students are also experiencing difficulty with payment for the programme. This is why we are constantly on the lookout for additional funding in the hopes of helping them cover the cost. Despite our passionate drive to continue with our endeavours, our essential expenses far outweighs our return of investments and we have been covering the remaining costs for a while now.
A few things we wished our schools and parents knew:
4a Building confidence is not an overnight process but an ongoing one. We only have our students for 1.5 hours in a week with 168 hours. If the tools we are teaching are not being implemented outside of our programme, then that is reflected in the outcomes for each individual.
4-b. We shouldn’t expect to send our child to piano lessons with no prior experience and with expectation for them to master Beethoven or Mozart at the end of 10 sessions. However, we have found that if schools or parents don't see huge changes, then the programme doesn’t work. Again, we can’t emphasise enough that if either the parents or schools are uncertain regarding the outcomes they want, then there is no possible way for us to meet vague expectations.
4-c. The span of 10 weeks is not enough time to produce transformational changes. The change will emerge eventually but it is important to note that self growth is an ongoing process.
4-d. Our students may not like the programme but that is not why they are there. It is to equip them with tools that can help them grow in confidence. We can definitely ensure their self confidence wi grow and they will learn and grow.
4-e. We have invited all schools and parents to please come along and watch the sessions, contact us, talk with us so we can help and support them on their child’s/student’s journey. We have set up a Facebook page to inform parents and school what their children are doing. We really want to support our schools and parents with their children/student self growth.
4-f. We are not a performing arts programme but we use performing arts in our sessions as a vehicle. We also work with both boys and girls within the Confident Me Programme.
5. We had a few media outlets who came forward to express their intent to cover the Confident Me programme this year for National TV. Sadly, they wanted to hook viewers with the plot of using our students suffering from experienced SA, DV at home, gang affiliation and those that are on antidepressants due to clinical depression. These media outlets wanted to focus their piece delving into the lives of those in our Confident Me Programme hoping to capitalise on massive traumas instead of shining the light on the benefits of the programme. We, at Maia Dreams, cannot trade our youth’s vulnerability for a 15 minute limelight or fame. It is absolutely not worth the air time, and we prefer to highlight positivity as part of our longterm compass.
Our love for our craft is strong, our vision is clear and we will never take for granted the privilege of working with countless tamariki and rangatahi every year. We have witnessed some amazing progress and growth so we will soldier on because these progress in our students is the light that keeps our torch burning. The same torch will hopefully shed some light to help get our pleas heard by those that share our long term goal to change the lives of the youth.
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