YMCA South and Mid Canterbury

YMCA South and Mid Canterbury is all about ‘Investing in the Next Generation’. We’re a not-for-profit organisation that provides a range of FREE education programmes (Opihi Services Academy, BodyMindSpirit, Skills4Life and Workplace Literacy & Numeracy) and support-to-employment programmes (Drive2Work). We also operate a Driving School to help people progress to their full driver licence and gain various transport endorsements. We offer accredited OSCAR Holiday Programmes and Breakaway Youth Holiday Programmes, KiwiSport activities, and youth support programmes and services like our Resiliency Toolkit and Community Youth Mentoring Service. We were named winner of the Community Organisation category in the 2016 South Canterbury Business Excellence Awards, and have won numerous national YMCA awards for youth development and programme innovation. Our community development work includes establishment of the scyouth.co.nz ‘virtual youth hub’ website and the SC Youth Sector Network, and also the region-wide biennial SC Youth Survey. None of this community work, nor our Resiliency Toolkit programme – receives government funding. Each year we work with and positively impact the lives of upwards of 4000 people in our region. We’ve been operating in Timaru since 1917 – 100 Years of Investing in the Next Generation.