ABSTRACT
Coming from the mighty ‘down under’ (that’s Aotearoa/New Zealand, not Australia), the three of us represent different aspects of the youth voice in New Zealand. In Aotearoa/New Zealand, we have a phrase ‘tino rangatiratanga’. It is one of the foundational cornerstones to the Treaty of Waitangi – the document that established Aotearoa/New Zealand as we know it today. A short definition of this phrase is the ability to make choices and decisions in one’s own life about issues relevant to oneself – it’s about striving for self-determination in one’s own life. So, basically, it is about agency. When we look at the chapters in this section, we can see that effective youth participation is about tino rangatiratanga – giving young people the space to have a choice and to exercise some agency when it comes to making decisions about their own lives.
