Empowering democracy – a fight to be heard, a fight that’s been forgotten
It’s election year in Aoteoroa-New Zealand but participation from younger voters aged 18-24 is still lagging more than 10% behind the national average.
Communication students in the School of Media Arts at Wintec, Te Pūkenga are working alongside YWCA to build a Suffrage 130 Youth Vote campaign. This initiative has the goal of persuading youth to participate in this upcoming election.
With fewer than three-quarters of eligible youth voters casting a ballot, the students want to emphasise the value of a vote for the future, but also acknowledge the importance of what has gone before.
The students feel the future and the past are equally important when relating to the hopeful progression of a country through government, particularly the rights of all adult citizens to vote.
These rights were not always universal and Suffrage 130 Youth Vote is aimed to encourage youth to not throw away the opportunity.
Gail Pittaway is a Wintec, Te Pūkenga academic and researcher as well as PhD candidate and writer.
Gail brings valuable insight to her students when speaking on a wide-range of topics, including equality, democracy and voting.
Gail has lived experience of roadblocks to equality and continues to shine a light on democracy. She encourages participating in the democratic process and said, “voting is a great responsibility, however, doing nothing allows somebody else to take your vote.”
Gail feels there are many issues to be addressed through democracy. She recounted 1983, where she wished to obtain a loan from the bank with the promise of utilising that money to buy property.
Despite earning money as a teacher, she was refused on the basis of being a woman as it was believed that women were untrustworthy due to their ability to become pregnant, calling into question their integrity when keeping and returning money.
Regardless of the many challenges that women have faced along the way, they continue to advocate for democracy and are keenly aware of the responsibilities of voting, encouraging everybody that is eligible to vote to exercise that right.
To find out more about the Youth Vote Campaign, go to Youth Vote NZ.
