CHANGING the way a community deals with certain issues isn’t an easy task.
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However, that was a goal for a number of the region’s youth this week who worked together to create solutions to problems they faced.
The program, called Change It Up, is run by the Foundation for Young Australians and allows these young people to pitch their ideas to community leaders who in turn might turn them into reality.
The foundation’s senior program manager, Jane Fishburn, said the idea focused on allowing young people to present the ideas in a public setting with the hope the community might take it further.
“It is extremely important. Young people have ideas, they have energy and they can contribute to society as much as anybody else and they are here right now. They are part of us and they don’t have to wait until they are older to contribute,” she said.
“It is about bringing together young people in regional areas and focus on changes they want to see in their community and to develop the idea and pitch it to their community.”
A team made up of Emmi Gale, Kruiz Jenkins, Izaak Wood and Terrence Curwen-King was one group which worked together over the two-day program.
Members of the group said they wanted to change the way certain issues, such as the LGBTQI community and mental health, were handled in schools.
“So we decided to go about forming an SRC-type committee in each school we are connected to and where we can promote, for instance, if we are going to have two weeks on anxiety, we could put posters up about it for that time and then figure out what we could do next,” Mr Curwen-King said.
The idea would also involve making each of these issues play a part in the curriculum to help students and teachers understand each issue better.
“It is just about giving people a place to go and talk to people about them where they are comfortable,” Mr Jenkins said.
“That was one of our main points. It isn’t really portrayed in classes as much as you thought it would be and it definitely should be, because it is definitely a major problem among young people.”
matthew.dixon@fairfaxmedia.com.au