Rise For Lives has been fundraising in schools and communities for direct humanitarian support for people affected by wars since our inception. Since mid July we’ve expanded to 10+ cities around Aotearoa ( New Zealand) and have had youth joining our organization from 15+countries.

 

With the support of Rise For Lives, students are enabled to host educational and fundraising events to aid humanitarian crises all across New Zealand and the globe. Many of our own volunteers are paving the way and also hosting events outside of their schools to help educate people about conflicts  and to fundraisers for the organizations we work with, including Save the Children who directly help people in warzones.

 

In late 2020 and 2021 we organized and held school-wide fundraising drives in schools around New Zealand, where we raised thousands that went towards Save The Children. As a part of this initiative we held educational events at schools with speakers and other activities that helped educate young people about humanitarian crises. We had over 3000 young people directly participating both from primary and high schools across the country and the globe.

 

In February 2021 we ran our first National Peace Walk for Yemen which over 10 cities from around New Zealand as well as people from overseas ( virtually) have participated in. Cities included Hawkes Bay, Wellington, Auckland, Blenheim, Hamilton and Invercargill. Our peace walk was fully non-political and its purposes were to raise awareness about the Yemeni crisis and encourage the New Zealand government to take more action to help restore peace in Yemen and aid refugees. In March of 2021, we were amplified by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Yemen where our successes in the coordination of 10+ national events were recognised.

 

In April 2021 some of our members were invited to speak at the Young Labour Conference at the University of Auckland so that youth supporting the Labour Party could learn more about what they could do when working with the New Zealand government to help reduce wars. We are fully non-partisan and give speeches at many kinds of events.