Southland Girls’ High year 13 student Nargis Girhotra, 17, was selected by Invercargill MP Penny Simmonds for the role after she impressed the parliamentary representative with her community passion and involvement.
Nargis is a prefect in her school, chairwoman of the Invercargill City Youth Council and a volunteer for a range of organisations such as World Vision, the Student Volunteer Army, Lions Club and the Southland Multicultural Society.
"It’s such an honour and like it’s a duty that now I have to follow to actually bring our Invercargill youth voice to the national stage," Nargis said.
"We are often told that we’re leaders of tomorrow, but we’re also the leaders of today — and we need to be change-makers of today as well."
While she wanted to pursue a law career next year, she believed this role was the perfect chance for her to make a difference in the community she had been living since 2022, she said.
It was around that time she started to become interested in politics — she felt quite "lonely and isolated" and joined the debate club as a way "to speak up for herself".
"Through the debate club, I started watching like world news, because education is the first way to change ... And so being aware of what’s going on in the world helped me shape my moral compass and also like increase my cultural awareness."
Among her goals in the role were to spread awareness of youth mental health in Invercargill and celebrate Southland’s growing cultural diversity.
"I want to advocate for more youth services such as mental services and kind of break that stigma around youth mental health. You should be able to talk about it with the community and like open up about it, just so we can have better conversations, as I believe that they are the foundation of all change."
Nargis will be travelling in July to Wellington to attend the Youth Parliament.
She also will be accompanying Ms Simmonds and her team to some appointments and meetings.
Ms Simmonds said this was an incredible opportunity for Nargis as she would see how decisions were made and how to assist youth in being able to influence those decisions.
"It’s about understanding things like select committee, how to make submissions so that you can impact on legislation that’s going to occur, seeing those processes and then being able to come back and help youth here amplify their voice.
"I think it’s really important that person doesn’t just see it as their privilege, but as something that they can pass on to be able to help the voice of youth in Southland and Nargis really stood out in terms of her community involvement already."
