Ballarat Grammar students are creating a community program to provide opportunities for young people to develop their unique passions.
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Ballarat Grammar Year 9 students Holly Douglas and Amy Gosby are connecting students with mentors in classes on different passion topics, like puppeteering, web design and fiction writing.
Amy said she saw a lack of community engagement and connectedness between young people from different groups and wanted to bring people together.
"We want to break down barriers between groups with different people who want to follow their passions," Holly said.
"We value nurturing interests through teaching to help people see what they want to do and follow their dreams and passions. We value a mentor student relationship in teaching.
"There is a lot of division between groups outside of schools and many people can't follow what they want to do because they don't have the time or resources."
Passion Program is aimed at senior high school students, but is suitable for all age groups.
There is a lot of division between groups outside of schools and many people can't follow what they want to do because they don't have the time or resources.
- Holly Douglas, Ballarat Grammar student
It will be promoted across the community for people to learn skills and make friends.
The project is a part of the Crazy Ideas College program run at Ballarat Grammar.
Holly said her unique passion was puppetry and there were not many puppeteers in Ballarat.
"It is hard to find people who aren't professional puppeteers who are willing to share information," she said.
"It would be great to create connections by sharing what we know about puppetry."
Amy is passionate about aerial hoops and silks and said there were not many people doing the sport in Ballarat.
"Being able to connect with people and learn from people is a great opportunity and that is why we value it so much," she said.
READ ABOUT OTHER CRAZY IDEAS COLLEGE PROJECTS:
Holly said she had learnt how to collaborate and reach out to people during the project, which had pushed her outside of her comfort zone.
"Working with Holly has been super fun and it has been a great time," she said.
"We have learnt lifelong skills you can't always learn in school, things like marketing we can continue to use those in the future."
"I like learning about different things in the process, like the ways you can use social media platforms to get your ideas out there," Amy said.
"I have learnt about social collaboration and awareness of groups in the community."
Amy and Holly are hoping to run trial Passion Program classes on fiction writing, video editing and web development.
The team will work to create an Instagram account to promote people's interesting passions, small businesses and creatives.
"We hope to get more and more workshops like this happening in the future," Amy said.
Amy and Holly said they wanted to continue working on the project beyond the end of the Crazy Ideas College program at school.
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