Seventeen-year-old Katie Grigg is proud to have introduced a programme to her high school aimed at reducing alcohol-related road deaths among youth.
The Community College Marlborough student joined the movement Sadd (Students Against Driving Drunk) this year because of stories she heard from her mother, a former nurse at Auckland's Middlemore Hospital.
"My mum used to come home and tell me these crazy stories about what happened [during her shifts] and it was really shocking."
Katie also joined because she knew several of her friends drove after drinking.
She said she initially had trouble getting the other 70 Community College students to embrace the Sadd message.
Other students, she said, thought the drink-driving message had been "shoved down their throat".
"It was quite a mission to get people to listen to me, but I had the support of all the teachers."
Now a representative for the cause, Katie attends regional Sadd meetings as well as weekly school council meetings and also organises competitions and promotional material.
Katie said Sadd members sign a contract for life promising not to drink and drive.
Aside from being a staunch advocate for Sadd, Katie has a passion for hairdressing. "People were a bit shocked when I said I'd like to become a hairdresser, but it's something that makes me truly happy. There aren't a lot of jobs I could get that kind of buzz from.
"It relaxes me; it's pretty much my dream job."
Katie, who works at Solutions '93 Hair Salon on High St, Blenheim, believes outer beauty can be a catalyst for exposing inner beauty. "Before I go into work I'm really excited about getting to meet people and talk to them. If somebody looks good on the outside, in turn they'll feel good on the inside."
Katie hopes to eventually travel the world as a hairdresser.
As a member of Sadd, she believes the biggest problem facing youth at the moment is drink driving.
But she said coverage of youth drink driving in the media was given too much emphasis, while all the good things young people did received little attention. This was unfair to the majority of young people who were generally very responsible.
"It does put a bit of a downer on the youth. You wish you could talk to these people and say: `Look, this is what the rest of the world thinks of us now'."
She said bad news took the focus away from the positive things youth did. "People don't take youth as seriously as they should because the youth are the future."
By SIMON WONG - The Marlborough Express
"People don't take youth as seriously as they should because the youth are the future."
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