“This event gave the youth of Rockhampton a platform where our opinions would not go unheard, and our ideas could amount to something”. That is a quote from last week’s column written by a secondary school student who attended the two and half day Youth Change Agents event in Rockhampton.
Ten days later what have we as a community done to help the 36 local students who participated to build on this platform? Have our community leaders; who we expect to be pro-active about societal issues like bullying, gender inequality, drug rehabilitation, obesity, homelessness, marine conservation, even listened to the student’s ideas on these very issues?
I like listening to the enthusiasm of youth, unfortunately at the same time I think like an adult. It’s been tried before kids, you got no idea about costs, if only it was that simple to solve. Thus, when you get a bunch of adults together to solve societal issues the outcome is often not much more than a thick report about problems that will be encountered in trying to solve the problem. A dust collector.
Youth are often yet to be left jaded with continual ‘kind’ words like, don’t dream big, you’ll only be left disappointed or it is too big of a problem to solve. Thus, with their different eyes they see possibilities not just hurdles. They believe change is possible.
Should we defer more of solving society’s issues to our youth as well as the experts? Not invite them to some adult forum, but enable them to hold their own. Like a forum on one question presently perplexing a lot of local adults, how do we accommodate the thousands coming to Beef Week? Or something possibly more relevant to them, how does Rockhampton provide inexpensive accommodation to the 1200 people attending the Queensland Schools Championship’s Rowing Regatta in September? How does Rockhampton create a Youth Enterprise Economic Zone, would be an issue I love to hear their thoughts on?
Don’t call these forums Youth Council or Parliaments, offer something that sounds more accepting and welcoming of all students.
Why would they do it, what would motivate them to come up with constructive ideas; initially because they are asked and later because we as a community demonstrated that we actually listened to them, by helping their ideas amount to something.
“This event has left all those involved yearning to take action to create change in the community, eager to find solutions to the big issues”. As indicated by this statement, the students’ final sentence in last week’s column, our youth are ready to play an active part in finding solutions if we are prepared to listen.
There is a Communication to Careers session tomorrow morning at TCC. C2C provides a pillar to the platform from which Rockhampton youth can be heard. Be good to see more adults there. Visit www.ring.org.au/c2c for details.