​Phodiso Dintwe is a multidisciplinary artist and performer from Botswana. He was a Rising Voices 2016 finalist, and is currently pouring his focus into music. His work speaks into the worlds and weavings within the Afrikan continent and all who are tethered to it. Phodiso has recently released his debut album, 'Act I’.

Stevie Davis-Tana is a spoken word poet, youth worker, and māmā to be, born and bred in Tāmaki Makaurau. She is currently working on a new project ‘Kō’, a spoken word poetry visual album about reclaiming identity as a young person in te ao Māori. She is passionate about creativity, culture, community, young people, and pasta.

​Lastman So'oula is an educator, artist, and performer. An alumni of the South Auckland Poets Collective and a Fine Arts Graduate of Elam, he has been a coach for multiple Word the Front Line teams and is the 2017 Auckland University Poetry Slam Champion.

​Aotearoa-born Tokelauan and Samoan poet Luti Richards is the eldest of 12 siblings who was born and raised in Happy Valley, Wellington. She was a member of the critically acclaimed South Auckland Poets Collective and the visionary behind WORD – THE FRONT LINE, Aotearoa’s first inter-high school spoken word program developed under the leadership of Action Education in 2014. Luti has worked in varied roles in film and television production, youth development, business management and more recently in strategic advisory roles within faith-based organisations. She is a visionary wordsmith with an innate ability to reimagine a new and better world through poetry, picture and verse and has performed in various events and conferences including the Queenstown Poetry Festival; the Northern Easter Camp and the Every Nation Conference in Manila, Philippines.

In it’s 7th year, Word – The Front line is the only event of its kind in Aotearoa. A poetic battlefield in which young leaders, artists, and visionaries gather from all over Auckland to share their voices. Come along and celebrate the top 16 high school teams as they battle for a chance to compete in the 2020 Grand Slam.
Due to the current covid safety guidelines all of our semi-final heats this year will be online events streaming from the Action Education Facebook Page.
​
Heat 1
Tuesday 29th September, 7.00pm-8.30pm, Online via FB
Papatoetoe High School
Saint Kentigern College
Epsom Girls Grammar
Rangitoto College
Heat 2
Thursday 1st October, 7.00pm-8.30pm, Online via FB
Mangere College
Aorere College Team 2
Birkenhead College
Ngā Puna O Waiōrea
Heat 3
Monday 5th October, 7.00pm-8.30pm, Online via FB
Onehunga High School
De La Salle College Team 1
Mt Roskill Grammar
Northcote College
Heat 4
Wednesday 7th October, 7.00pm-8.30pm, Online via FB
De La Salle College Team 2
Aorere College Team 1
Mount Albert Grammar
Saint Dominics
Event is open to all ages. However there may be use of mature language and themes.

In 2018 Action Education was successful in it's application to the Mental Health Foundation and the Like Minds, Like Mine project to produce a series of web videos by and for young people on the topic of mental health. 

The campaign, Busting Myths, reached over 295,000 people in New Zealand and the videos were shared over 1,200 times. 

Content was written and performed by young people about their own experiences from what it means to be a man, cultural identity, childhood traumas, anxiety, Māori displacement, school pressures and more. 

A huge mihi to the Mental Health Foundation and the Like Minds, Like Mine project for supporting this kaupapa and allowing these young poets to share their truth so that others experiencing similar challenges know they aren't alone, and are able to learn about resources they can access if they need help. 

​“Little red monster found home in my cranium, seems to be renting a space in my amygdala – I’m pretty sure his prior residence used to be under my bed.”

Sometimes our thoughts can get on top of us. If your thoughts are worrying you, please reach out and talk to someone: You are not alone. Reach out to friends, whānau or a helpline. We’ve got you.

"Our boys are not broken, but damn – how we teach them to break.”

In this powerful piece Fili and Noah question what it means to be ‘a man’. No matter what you’ve been told, you are enough. Your personal strength does not come from holding things back, it comes from reaching out.

This year marked the 10th Anniversary of The South Auckland Poets Collective (SAPC). The members of SAPC are the coaches, mentors and facilitators of our programmes. It is a difficult thing to discern where SAPC ends and Action Education begins, both bodies are inextricably linked and are symbiotic in nature. 

We give huge thanks to Auckland City Libraries who this year have archived our works and supported us to celebrate this in style. This included a heritage talk, a 3-night show directed by Grace Taylor and supported by Creative New Zealand and an exhibition as part of the Auckland Arts Festival at the Mangere Arts Centre.

Action Education and SAPC have woven a rich history together over the last decade and have had a huge impact on the communities and young people we have worked with, this became increasingly clear as the anniversary came together.

​10 years ago Youth Workers, poets and friends Ramon Narayan, Grace Taylor and Daren Kamali had an idea. Through poetry they had each experienced the ability to break down barriers and engage with young people, with spoken word they had stumbled onto a medium that would lead to one of the most powerful tools of youth engagement and self-expression in Aotearoa.

Over the years the kaupapa alignment of Action Education and SAPC has become clear, and as Ramon says, it is hard to tell where one begins and the other ends. The current members of the Collective are coaches, mentors and educators for all of Action Education’s current programmes.
​
SAPC is a creative home to nurture outstanding talents, who are then equipped to give back to the next generation of artists through Action Education.

The South Auckland Poets Collective paved the way for the possibility of Stand Up Poetry, WORD – The Front Line, and so many events and programmes that Action Education uses to provide  pportunities for young people to develop and express their inherent creativity.

“South Auckland Poets Collective has grown the art of poetry slam, pedagogy and emerging and youth performers and writers in leaps and bounds over the last decade in New Zealand, especially from its humble beginnings in South Auckland,” says co-founder Daren Kamali who now works as a Senior Curator for Auckland Libraries.

“I want to acknowledge the role of Youthline and Action Education over the last 10 years for establishing 32 young poets and also being instrumental in working and keeping SAPC together with outreach work into our communities, nationwide and across the Tasman.”

​The support of Auckland Libraries to record and celebrate 10 years of the South Auckland Poets Collective has been an incredible way to validate the impact this small group of committed artists and community organisers has had.

“Celebrating 10 years of South Auckland Poets Collective is celebrating contemporary oral storytelling known as spoken word poetry in Aotearoa,” says co-founder Grace Taylor.

“I am so proud of the ripple effects the Collective have had for both young people and the artform as a whole. The thing I am most proud of is empowerment of young people to tell their own stories.”

​​In July 2019, Ngā Hine Pūkōrero, a group of four Rangatahi Maori poets, made history by competing at the 2019 Brave New Voices International Youth Poetry Slam in Las Vegas, USA. They were the first team from Australasia to ever compete in the festival, the largest of its kind in the world with over 500 young poets in attendance. They finished between 9th and 11th out of 50 teams, farther than any international team in its first year of competition, and earned the chance to share their work on the Finals stage in front of the entire BNV community.

As the first NZ poets to attend Brave New Voices they were tasked with the unique challenge of sharing stories and language that many of the other participants may not be familiar with. In order to bring their true stories to BNV, and the United States, they not only had to be poets but also historians and cultural ambassadors, something that most other teams never had to consider.

They covered topics such as land rights, domestic abuse within Aotearoa, language reclamation, gun violence and the Christchurch terror attacks, the power of indigenous women’s voices, colonisation, Captain Cook and the Dawn Raids.

While visiting the United States, Ngā Hine Pūkōrero were the featured artists at Da Poetry Lounge, the largest weekly poetry event in the United States which draws over 300 audience members to historic Greenway Court Theatre in Hollywood California.

The team spent more than 186 hours rehearsing, including a facilitation role at our annual Slam Camp where they worked on material for the competition and provided inspiration to the next generation of WORD - The Front Line participants, who were thrilled that a local team were going to represent ‘them’ on the world stage.

During the Brave New Voices competition, Ngā Hine Pūkōrero shared their stories with more than 4,500 live audience members and a further 122,000 viewers through Facebook Live.