Wintec project helps meet community need

Residents at Hamilton’s Alandale Retirement Village are the proud new owners of bespoke letterboxes thanks to a project by Wintec’s My Career Pathway programme students.

The students met with the residents late last year to discuss their requirements and plan the development of 130 letterboxes. The first 20 were then delivered last week, with the remaining 110 currently in production to be delivered later this year.

The students are from the Manufacturing and Technology and Construction and Infrastructure pathways in the Trades cohort of My Career Pathway. My Career Pathway is a fee-free, project-based, vocational programme which helps students gain the skills needed to move into entry level employment or further education pathways.

Wintec’s Centre for Education and Foundation Pathways director, Margaret Naufahu said the letterbox project was an example of the type of hands-on learning the students are exposed to.

“They get to see a project through from conception to completion – firstly meeting with members of the community and ascertaining their needs, then producing plans and working drawings, and finally constructing a solution and then the final delivery of the product.”

The first lot of letterboxes were met with great appreciation from their new owners, who thanked the students and gave them a tour of the village.

“It was a really satisfying experience for the students – they were all pleased to see how they could make a positive impact on others through something which can seem quite insignificant, like a letterbox,” Margaret said.