The Youth Ambassador team has been busy working on and contributing their knowledge and experience to a range of projects across Yarra Ranges through the end of 2019 and start of the new year.
I’d like to share some insight into some of the type of work that we do as part of our roles at council.
At the end of 2019, I worked to support the Upper Yarra Partnership group with their Transport and Linking Communities project. That work involved facilitating an engagement session with school students at a lunch time session, where we ran activities for students, where they could share their experiences with public transport in the Upper Yarra and tell us about what might help them to get to where they need to go.
Their feedback will help the Upper Yarra Partnership to shape transport and social connection in the Upper Yarra Region.
Another project that the Youth Ambassadors are currently involved in is working with the School Focused Youth Services team at Council, to help plan and deliver a series of sessions at a local primary school focused around identity.
We have been working collaboratively as Youth Ambassadors to design lesson plans to engage young people in discussions about identity, and what that might mean for them. The sessions will involve the students working together to form and strengthen positive relationships, hearing from community mentors and participation in a Sport and Life Training (SALT) session. The students will then plan and create their own project about what identity looks like and means to them.
2019 was a huge year for the Youth Ambassadors, and we’re all looking forward to working on new projects, meeting new people in the community and helping to use our experiences and knowledge as young people to influence how things are done at Council.
Rachael Lee
Yarra Ranges Youth Ambassador
