This style of campaigning is bold. It’s about using new technologies, and the social connections that define the lives of many young people to bring their ways of doing politics to the election.
‘Students and young people are an incredibly diverse community and no one size fits all approach has any hope of being successful. Our campus teams have the ability to speak to the communities they know best, and in ways that make sense to them,’ says Jonathan.
‘We Have Power aims to flip the misconstrued narrative that low youth voter turnout is due to apathy. Instead, the movement believes that politics has failed to speak to the aspirations, experiences and lived realities of young people which has led to this disillusionment. By voting, we have the power to change things.’
WHP volunteer Moana Potaka (Ngati Whakaue, Tapuika, Waitaha, Ngati Wai), 28, business studies student at Eastern Institute of Technology, says ‘many of the barriers to education facing students like low income, poor housing, and lack of ability to travel to campus can be fixed by politicians. If politicians used their power to stand up for students, students would use their power to vote them into Parliament.’
WHP volunteer Emily Barker, 22, fine arts student at the University of Canterbury says it is crucial that we empower young people to vote, ‘at the end of the day, we will inherit the outcomes of this election.’
We Have Power is a campaign coordinated by the New Zealand Union of Students’ Associations (NZUSA).
ENDS