A Gold Coast-based charity is expanding to regional areas to provide opportunities for more students, with the aim of keeping them in school.

Kokoda Youth Foundation CEO Johllene Elson said the program was about preventing juvenile crime in those towns.

“We are targeting those kids who are at risk of exiting the school system and keeping them in education through a series of outdoor education activities over a six-month course,” Ms Elson said.

Key points

• Kokoda Youth Foundation aims to help 96 students over two years, as it expands to regional schools
• The charity has been operating on the Gold Coast for 17 years
• It has received $1.4 million in funding

Tiffani Seaton now works for the charity, but went through a Kokoda Youth Foundation program when she was at school — a program she said changed her life.

“I was a little bit lost in life, didn’t really know who I was, what I wanted to be, where I wanted to go,” she said.

“It gave me direction, clarity, confidence and life skills.

Source
Heidi Sheehan
ABC News