Yes Questers - New Zealand 2010

What We Do

The flagship programme of the Enthum Foundation is the YES Quest UK, and this will work to address the life challenges faced by many young people in a unique and innovative way. It will be launched in September 2010, and builds on the success of the YES Quest programmes that originated in Australia in 2001 and have been run over the last nine years in Australia, Indonesia, Austria, France, the US and New Zealand. (see personal stories)

At a key transition point in life, The YES Quest provides a vision of how young people can be assisted to become more aware of their unique talents, skills and personal qualities, and how they can build a fully satisfying career and life.

The YES Quest originated with the awareness that many young people face a major challenge in making sense of the world and their place in it. It is easy to say, The youth are the future of the world, but where is our investment in their future?

The future young people face is not the rosy looking picture of a generation ago. The world is more global, has many more serious issues to deal with, and for many young people, the world they are inheriting is at once exciting, challenging, confusing, disappointing and scary.

Experience has clearly indicated that there are three core needs:

  • To learn and understand more about themselves and their potential —their capacities, talents, unique qualities, deep wishes and personal issues— so they better know themselves and the resources they have for life’s journey.
  • To be supported, validated and loved for who they are, and what they have the potential to do, so the emergence of their real self into awareness and action is facilitated at a key point in their lives when careers are started.
  • To explore, discover and understand how best they can begin the process of living in the adult world, learning required skills, developing a career and manifesting who they really want to be in a productive and satisfying way.

For some young people, the circumstances of their lives can also be very difficult. Economic and social situations may limit opportunities for their potential to be realised, even for the basic requirements of life to be satisfied.