Looking for work and not finding any was ''soul-killing'' for Michelle Irwin.
''Two years ago, I was on the benefit, had bugger-all money and after getting rejection letters - or no replies - it was actually really soul-killing,'' the 24-year-old said.
Her life changed when she went into Work and Income to get a food subsidy and learned about Ready, Steady, Work, a Clutha district youth employment initiative which helps young people transition from school into work, and she landed a job as a checkout worker at New World Balclutha.
Ms Irwin was stuck in a cycle of part-time temporary work before she became unemployed, and it was taking a toll.
As an unemployed youth, some days she questioned why she should get out of bed.
The emotional and psychological impact of unemployment on youth was the reason Clutha District Council Mayor Bryan Cadogan had become so passionate about ending it in his district, he said.
''This is the face of youth unemployment.''
''When failing to find work young people blame themselves and get defensive - they put up walls,''
which could have a lasting impact on young people's lives, Mr Cadogan said.
The mayor, who started the youth employment programme in Clutha through his role as the chairman of the nationwide network the Mayors Task Force for Jobs, said getting youth into work could be the biggest economic driver for Clutha, a district with a wealth of jobs.
When Ready, Steady, Work began in 2010, there were 30 youth to fill 400 jobs, he said.
That is why he guaranteed that if a young person stuck to the programme and passed a drug test at completion, they would get a job.
Mr Cadogan said that without doing more to exploit the district's wealth in jobs, Clutha would continue on the path that ''every other region in New Zealand'' was on: the population decline that had come from a young, mobile workforce looking for opportunities elsewhere.
''If we follow the same economic development path that every other council has, we will get the same outcome.
"We will get the average for New Zealand and that, for rural [areas], is that terminal decline.''
Mr Cadogan said there were more jobs in the district now than there were four years ago.
Young unemployed people were ''seeing their friends buying cars, buying clothes, getting on with their lives - they want it''.
''If you give a kid a chance, they want it. Who doesn't want to get on with their life? Who doesn't want money?''
Mr Cadogan did not begrudge those young people who left the district, but said for too long those who stayed behind had not been a focus and they had to be.
''The ones that stay, they're the ones that we focus on: if they maximise their potential, our district is maximising its potential,'' Mr Cadogan said.
Ms Irwin said the confidence she gained from the programme was one of its greatest benefits.
She rode a horse for the first time in years, learned to ride a motorcycle - ''tiny things that I'd never been given the opportunity to try''.
And after the programme ended she continued to meet her mentor, a member of the Balclutha community whom she chose, for coffee and support and the ''follow through'' she had never had before.
- Hamish Maclean
