Youth Forum

Ariella Markman & Jason Rostant
Human Rights Education

The Youth Forum held in conjunction with Youthlaw on Monday 26th February was hugely successful. About 70 young people attended, representing around 70% of local councils which had been invited to nominate and sponsor delegates. The young people involved throughout the day were engaged and energised, made lots of new friends and contacts from around the state, and took back to their local councils lots of new information and a range of ideas.

Speakers included Helen Szoke, Nadia Mohammed (who provided a moving account of her experience of human rights violations in Somalia), the DART Banyule Youth Advisory Group, Minister for Youth, James Merlino and singer, Kate Ceberano.

A variety of human rights workshops were conducted throughout the day which included four interactive sessions on the themes of Freedom, Respect, Equality and Dignity, and afternoon sessions to identify issues and strategies in relation to a range of topics. These human rights topics were identified by a Youth Advisory Committee which had been engaged to steer development of the Forum. The topics included:

• disability
• ethnicity
• the criminal justice system and public space
• work
• family

Findings, key themes and local action strategies from each session were fed back to the plenary forum at the conclusion of the afternoon. Key issues related to experiences of discrimination, lack of youth voice, and the need for greater opportunities for youth participation.

The formal part of the day was followed by an opportunity for delegates to socialise and further develop their friendships with an evening of bowling at Strike Bowling Bar.

On Tuesday 27th February, two Youth Advisory Committee members provided an overview of the Forum to the opening session the Commission’s Human Rights conference, which was followed by a rap interpretation by A.R.A.B. (the Anti-Racist Action Band).

Feedback from young people was very enthusiastic and positive, and indicated they found the experience fun, had enjoyed the opportunity to meet other like-minded young people, and left with an increased understanding of human rights issues and the inspiration needed to create local change.

A report of the forum is now available (see below), and along with a DVD containing highlights of the day, will be distributed to all delegates as well as to their sponsoring councils.

We would like to thank Tiffany Overall and Jordana Cohen from Youthlaw who were fantastic to work with, all of the Forum speakers, the many Commission staff who gave us a hand along the way, and most of all, the young people on the Youth Advisory Committee who gave enormous amounts of their time and energy in putting together this event.

Available materials:

Human Rights Youth Forum Report - PDF (3.1MB)