Share your story and help broaden horizons for young people
Tiria tō kōrero hei whakawhānui i ngā tirohanga a ngā taiohi
Having a kōrero about your job with school students and young people in your community can be life-changing for rangatahi, and for you too.
What is Inspiring the Future?
He aha te Inspiring the Future?
Inspiring the Future connects schools and other groups that support young people with volunteers from the world of work, so rangatahi can learn about different jobs.
Schools or other event hosts hold Inspiring the Future events – inviting volunteer role models from their community to share their career journeys and stories.
Based on local and international research, Inspiring the Future is helping expand career aspirations and challenge the stereotypes that can limit young people’s potential.
How volunteering works
He pēhea ngā mahi tūao e mahi ai
When you sign up as a role model for Inspiring the Future, you’ll be asked to complete an online profile. And because keeping our young people safe is important, all our volunteers also need to complete a criminal record check.
Find out more about the criminal record check.
After this, your profile will become visible to schools and other approved event hosts on the website. They can then invite you to in-person or online Inspiring the Future events. When you’re invited, you’ll receive an email asking you to respond. You can accept or decline invites as you wish.
How to sign up as an Inspiring the Future role model
Your time commitment
Tō whakapau wā ka hiahiatia
In-person Inspiring the Future events usually last one to three hours. You should also allow time to travel to and from the event, as well as up to an hour for preparation.
Online Inspiring the Future events usually take around one hour. For these events, you can dial in from the comfort of your own home or workplace.
How events work
He pēhea ngā hui e mahi ai
Once you sign up, you will get access to resources and guidance to help you prepare for events. You can access these when you sign into your account.
There are five Inspiring the Future event formats:
Guess My Job
Panel sessions where participants try to guess role models’ jobs, followed by in-depth discussions in smaller groups.
Step-by-step guide to volunteering at a Guess My Job event (PDF 943KB).
Online Career Chat
Participants meet role models online and try to guess their jobs, followed by a presentation and Q&A with each.
Step-by-step guide to volunteering at an online event (PDF 203KB)
Career Chat
A role model speaks about their career, followed by a Q&A for participants to learn more about their job and pathway. Repeated with as many role models as time allows (around 20 minutes for each).
Step-by-step guide to volunteering at a Career Chat event (PDF 579KB).
Career Discussion Group
Groups of participants rotate around the role models, spending 10–15 minutes with each, hearing about their careers and asking questions.
Step-by-step guide to volunteering at a Career Discussion Group event (PDF 670KB).
Role Model Interview
Participants interview role models about their careers for around 10 minutes, either 1:1 or 2:1, rotating around as many role models as time allows.
Step-by-step guide to volunteering at a Role Model Interview event (PDF 469KB).
Watch a Guess My Job event
Meet some of our life-changers
Tūtakina ētahi o ō mātou kaihuri oranga
Brony, Alicia, Harsh and Jessica share their experiences with Inspiring the Future.
Meet some of our other role models who have signed up to inspire young people.