Empowering young people and their whānau to reach their mental/emotional, social, physical and spiritual potential. 

 It all started with a basketball hoop and a ball at 34A Hansons Lane in 2002. Realising that many local kids were coming to play after school as they had little else to do with their spare time, Life Church (the owners of the 34A Hansons Lane property) made a hall available for a youth community centre and our first programme, Furnace, was formed.

Furnace began with just one attendee the first week, growing to 20 in the first year. 34a Youth Trust was established in 2004 which gave us the support and structure we needed to increase the vision.

Opportunities to place Youth Workers into both Riccarton High School and Riccarton Primary School (now Te Kāpehu Riccarton School) as part of the 24-7 Youth Network and also to run holiday programmes and after school programmes each term for children in our local community, has seen the work of the Trust grow in recent years.

In 2009 the Trust changed its name from 34a Youth Trust to La Vida Youth Trust to reflect how the community saw us and to align with the identity of the church’s new facility - the La Vida Conference and Community Centre.