Monday was a landmark day for C2C (Communication to Careers), the biggest event held with both the number of students and business representatives. 102 Grade 10 male students, 61 business representatives; the transference of information between the 2 groups was staggering. ‘Mutually beneficial’ was the comment from one business representative. From entering the hall saying “15 year old boys don’t communicate” to writing on the feedback form “the kids asked interesting questions”, was a revealing turnaround. “Many were confident and engaging” was another comment from a business representative.
In a media interview promoting the event I was told that youth have trouble communicating, not did I believe this to be the case, but they just did. Why Monday was a landmark, was not just because of the sheer size (twice as large as any previous) but what these 15 year old boys did to help change perceptions of the communication skills of youth. They demonstrated that they can effectively communicate face to face. Some were a bit nervous, but so were the some of the business representatives attending. It was mutually beneficial; the students gained firsthand knowledge and made local industry contacts. The business representatives got to share their experiences, knowledge, insights; gaining a sense of personal satisfaction and community obligation that their conversations may help the students with their post school lives. For these reasons alone more of this shared interaction between students and business should occur. One of the organisations that helped make this C2C event so successful was YouthInvest. A federal government funded partnership broker, which ceases to exist at this year’s end. Changing perceptions is one thing; decreasing youth unemployment is another. Making youth wait longer to get any financial assistance and also cutting the funding to organisations that help students in their transition from school to a possible job would appear to just make it harder for youth to get gainfully employed. Youth unemployment should be every community’s number 1 priority. Monday’s C2C provided another platform on which further initiatives between schools and local business can develop to get more youth employed. All levels of Government should now heed this lead by local businesses and schools to pro-actively assist this progression to occur.