Could you as a 15 year old stand in front of your peers and strangers, and admit that you used to be a real pain in the butt; it was your response to how you felt, alone and unwanted after your parents divorced, then with the mentorship of the man, who was to later become your step-father, you turned your feelings towards adults and establishment around to respecting them and believe more youth need to access help to enable them to realise the importance to oneself of respecting others? And you and your three mates have worked on a business model to help achieve this. Huge step to take I think. This recently happened at a local high school YCA workshop. Young Change Agents, what an appropriate name. It is amazing what the two and a half day workshop produces. Talking to one of the observers who witnessed the whole process he confided that he didn’t expect to see the outcomes after witnessing the students first get together. It’s not just the change in the student’s attitude towards getting out of two and a half days of normal class work, but the change in their mindset that their ideas can make a difference, they have a voice and a role in our community, and with encouragement want to bring about change. The change involves social entrepreneurship; looking at community problems that the students want to solve, then coming up with a sustainable way to do it.
Last week I mentioned the necessity for whole community involvement in a cultural change process to take maximum advantage of the opportunities technology advancement provides. Exposing our youth to entrepreneurial workshop’s like YCA is part of this cultural change. For students to see problems as opportunities, feel empowered to work on things they feel passionate about and believe they can bring about change, in just two and a half days is stirring. As a student who did the first YCA Rockhampton workshop said in an earlier column,” 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”. Imagine if not only more students were to do the workshop but did it every year they were in high school, perhaps even commencing when in primary school. There could be exciting outcomes; especially if the rest of the community were also embracing cultural change programs. As whole community involvement is needed for cultural change to be successful.
“Evidence and practice shows that the participation of intended beneficiaries and their families, neighbours, and trusted leaders can be critical to collaborations achieving impact. And a shift in power where community members own and help produce the result will lead to greater impact. Yet we don’t do this well”. That quote is from an invitation to attend a Rockhampton Masterclass workshop in ‘Communities Leading Change’ this September. The workshop promises to address ‘head on’ how to do community engagement better. The invitation is directed and costed to adults. I wonder what it would take for the guest presenter, Paul Schmitz, recognised as one of America’s most influential non-profit leaders who has served on former President’s Obama’s White House Council on Community Solutions, to spend some time with about 90 local students that are wanting ‘to take action to create change in the community’ after doing the YCA workshop? Wouldn’t that be a step towards ‘better’! As mentioned last week there’s supposedly $130M in government funding towards cultural change programs. How about some of this is spent here to enable at least these students to collaborate on better community engagement. Even better, could community power help produce this result?