New Zealand has taken a step for its teenagers who are going through breakups.
On Wednesday, the Love Better campaign was launched that will receive $4 million from the Ministry of Social Development over three years to comfort and help teenagers to get over their breakups and prevent any harm in their relationships, according to an RNZ report affiliated by CNN, a multinational news channel.
The campaign is being run by the youth of the country and the government considers it one of its key issues.
In a statement, Priyanca Radhakrishnan, Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment, said, “Over 1,200 young kiwis told us they need support to deal with early experiences of love and hurt, and breakups were identified as a common challenge.
A promotional video for the campaign says, “Breakups suck.” The video shows teenagers talking about the need to block their exes and get over their past relationships. In the video, one of the teens says, “This is getting ridiculous. This is getting so out of hand. I need to sleep at night. I need to get over her.”
The tagline of the campaign, “own the feels”, comes with a phone, text, or email helpline for young folks to recover from their breakups. The campaign is driven by Youthline, an organization pledged to supporting people aged from 12 to 24. Youthline will be getting a part of the $4 million to expand this helpline service.
Pointing out to the campaign’s approach of using social media to its advantage and creating a community to tackle the impact of breakups has never been tried before, Radhakrishnan said in her statement that “This is an authentic way to inspire others to build their own strength, self-worth, and resilience.”
According to the RNZ report, Youthline’s chief executive Shae Ronald said, “We know there can be very negative impacts from breakups done badly – both at a personal and community level”, adding that the youth majorly contact the helpline to get their relationship issues resolved.
A survey conducted over 1,200 young New Zealanders has unveiled that 68% have faced something bad “beyond the ‘normal’ hurt of breaking up”, according to the Ministry of Social Development.
Radhakrishnan said the campaign seeks to support young people through “these formative experiences” so that the campaign has a positive impact on how they go about future relationships.
The Love Better campaign is among the government’s broader national strategies to minimize family and sexual violence. “New Zealand has shameful statistics of family and sexual violence, and we need innovative approaches to break the cycle,” Radhakrishnan added.
The New Zealand Police work on more than 100,000 incidents of family violence every year, according to the Ministry of Justice.
The police received 9,723 reports of sexual violence in 2020 with about half of the people filing a report on sexual violence who were aged below 18 when the incident occurred, according to the Ministry of Justice.
