A group of Napier Girls’ High School Netballers celebrated Student Volunteer Week by reaching out to their wider netballing community during the nationwide lockdown.
With the netball competitions around the country on hold, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 Student Volunteer Week (SVW) campaign was a virtual one and prompted the senior team at Napier Girls’ to link in with each other and the wider pool of school players to stay in touch and remain focussed on the game.
Senior student Ashleigh Poi, younger sister of Silver Fern Kimiora Poi, set a 24-hour media challenge for the group and asked them to share what they did during their break from social media.
“I wanted us to use this time to focus on other things we enjoy doing and to take a break from all the content we are seeing about COVID-19,” she said.
Poi said there had been various activities shared by the group during the challenge including family game time, scrapbooking, getting into the kitchen and creating work-outs.
During this time the senior netballers had also taken the lead to run a topic or a work-out each day for the wider group to follow.
They had looked into covering mental skills via a video chat, including both the senior and junior players, which they could add to their netball toolbox on their return to the game.
The group was also brainstorming ideas on what netball could look like when the lockdown was lifted.
Napier Girls’ High School head coach Charissa Barham said it had been encouraging to watch the senior players take the lead on this challenge.
“It’s great. They are finding their own intrinsic motivators and keeping ready for netball,” she said.
“It’s been good learning for me too, to let them driver their experience and learning.”
Student Volunteer Week is a national campaign which ran from March 30 - April 5 and celebrated students making a change in their communities, and connecting young people with opportunities to get involved with volunteering.