i make. you wear it.

This week’s guest post comes from Rachel Burke, creator of “i make. you wear it”. 21-year-old Rachel ‘Rahool’ Burke is an innovative fundraiser who hates idle hands, and loves ideas. She believes in hard work and never underestimates a person’s ability to change the world!

In late April of this year I found myself on a long, solitary walk toward Fortitude Valley. The day saw me outwardly troubled – my strides were not meant to be meeting Brisbane turf. On the contrary, my feet and I were supposed to be in Melbourne studying Musical Theatre.

Madelin Newman wears Rachel’s first trial dress for ‘I Make. You Wear It’

Practicing vocal scales, shuffling about in a leotard, and working on my high kicks, THAT was supposed to be my life. However, as I’d decided (after a year of study at VCA) that ‘jazz hands’ weren’t for me, my now Brisbane-based life was watching me stagger across suburban zebra crossings in pursuit of a bacon and cheese burger from Grill’d, and contemplating what on earth I was going to do this year to fill the void of having run away from school.

Yet, somewhere between Kedron and a Kiwi Slurpee from the Lutwyche 7/11 an idea occurred to me that would solve my dilemma. The concept was to set myself a challenge to make a series of dresses in a few hours, over a number of Saturday nights. An on-and-off sewer from way back, and a big fan of the TV show ‘ready, steady…cook.’ the idea of setting myself some sort of creative, time-constricted endeavor, thoroughly appealed.

After an in depth chat to my best friend it was decided that the idea was indeed well suited to a blog and that I should use the concept to try and raise some money for charity.

The next day saw me trawling the Internet in pursuit of a charity that I wanted to assist. After lengthy searching I finally found NAPCAN, an Australian charity set up to prevent child abuse and neglect in Australia. Having known many people who, as children, were once affected by abuse and/or neglect, the importance of what this charity strives to do greatly appealed to me. After reading their mission statement I gave NAPCAN a call and told them that I wanted to try and raise their charity $25,000. The rest …beginning on August 7…is history!

The website www.imakeyouwearit.com was created by the incredibly internet-talented and time generous Matt Hickey, and was launched earlier this month. Thus far I have received support from BORDERS stores and I will be doing live dressmakings in both their City and Chermside stores to raise donations and awareness for the project. Currently I have been working on trialing my ‘quick sewing skills’, cultivating interest in NAPCAN to outside sources, and getting people interested in following my online and offline journey to raise $25,000.

Whilst ‘i make. you wear it’ is striving to support NAPCAN and raise awareness, the project also hopes to encourage other young people to actively pursue their ideas and help out in their community. It’s crazy just how possible ANYTHING is if you are willing to put the hard work in. And hey, if you’re feeling uninspired, maybe get a slurpee and go for a hefty stroll. It worked for me…

I Make. You Wear It. Begins on August 7 2010 and goes until January 1 2011. Check out the website on www.imakeyouwearit.com and show your support!

For more information or to contact Rachel directly, email her at: rachel@imakeyouwearit.com.

Our Young Heroes

Words: Greg Nelson

I’d like to fill everyone in on a new project that is starting to get some legs: http://www.ouryoungheroes.org.au is a website dedicated to highlighting the efforts and achievements of young people around Australia with the aim to:

• improve the perception of young people amongst the community, and
• help promote youth leadership (and volunteering)

We hope to get to the point where we:

• have a cache of profiles outstanding young people, proof positive of their value and capability
• provide a consolidated database of new opportunities for youth leadership in Australia
• provide resources for young people to promote themselves and young people, in addition to coordinating proactive efforts to improve the
  image of young people through the media

That is the big picture. We still have things to do to get there.

Right now, we are looking to:

• gather a more complete list of current youth leadership opportunities
• collect list of outstanding young Australians to make up the
  foundation for future profiles
• find others interested in helping achieve our vision
• spread word about the project, to those likely to help with the
  three previous points

If you’d like to join our committee, and help us out with some of these tasks, please check out the website for more detail and contact us at info@ouryoungheroes.org.au.

If you’d just like to keep up to date with how things are progressing, just send a quick reply to this email, follow us on twitter or facebook, or subscribe to the newsletter on our website.

Neighbour Day competition FTW!

As part of celebrating Neighbour Day (28th March 2010), Brisbane City Council ran a competition for young people under 18. ‘Stories from my street’ gave young people of Brisbane the opportunity to share stories about what they love about their street, neighbours, or share house or tell us how they met their neighbours and what Neighbour Day means to them.

Check out the other entries and have a listen to Shannon’s winning song about Neighbour Day here:

My Neighbourhood by Shannon Becquigny

We asked Shannon a few quick questions when she came in to collect her prize.

1. When did you first become interested in music?
I’ve always been interested in music, ever since I can remember!  I have long-ago memories of singing nursery rhymes and times tables.  However, I have become more serious about it in the last couple of years.  I wrote my first song in year 4 and did my first recording in year 6.  Since then I’ve been writing and recording a lot – at home and school, and even in the car or on the bus I jot down ideas for my next song.  I find it relaxing and enjoyable to be able to let out emotions through songs.  I play cello and piano, and sing of course, and I love the feeling of achievement once I’ve really nailed a difficult piece or completed a new song.  I’m in several ensembles at school, and really enjoy music camps.

2. What do you want to be doing in 5yrs?
In 5 years I hope to be at university studying music, or better still, in a recording studio recording my songs professionally.  I want people to hear my songs because if I enjoy and have fun writing and recording them, I think people would have enjoy and have fun listening to them.

3. How did you find out about Neighbour Day?
I found out about Neighbour Day by reading about it on the Visible Ink website after my mum handed me the ad from my school newsletter.

4. What made you enter the Neighbour Day competition?
I enjoy entering competitions and liked the way this one sounded – being able to be as creative and original as I could.  I love writing and recording songs so I thought it would be a great opportunity to record one for the competition, especially as I’d never considered writing a song about my neighbourhood before.  It was an excellent experience and a pleasant change from my usual style.

5. Do you think its important for young people to know their neighbours? Why?

I think it’s important for young people to know their neighbours because there are so many interesting people around us! Those people could live their lives and not be noticed by us, which would be a shame because it would be sad to not know such interesting people.  There is so much you can learn from new people – people who do or see things differently.  It can bring a whole new perspective or way of looking at things which you may not have known before.  Also, if you’re living in the same street as someone, it’s good to be friendly with them.  It makes the world a better place and has many advantages!

Join the ANTaR Virtual Bridge Walk for Reconciliation

10 years on: Online generation continues to support indigenous reconciliation through new app.

A decade after 300,000 people walked across the Sydney Harbour Bridge in support of indigenous reconciliation, a new generation of supporters is preparing to do the same thing. The difference this time, is that they’ll be walking across a virtual bridge from the comfort of their own homes.

The application allows users to create online “ANTaR avatars” representing themselves and place them onto a recreation of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, indicating their support of indigenous reconciliation. They can then send links to their friends, challenging them to find their ANTaR avatar on the iconic bridge in a “Where’s Wally?” style challenge.

“We know there’s thousands of people around today who would have loved to been part of that historic walk,” says Dr Peter Lewis, president of ANTaR Victoria.

“We’re hoping that participating in our virtual bridge walk for reconciliation will give some of those people a chance to show their support ten years later, in a fun and innovative way that they can share with their friends.”

The virtual bridge walk comes as part of ANTaR’s “Are We There Yet?” campaign, which takes a serious look at the issue of reconciliation and asks why there haven’t been more positive outcomes for Indigenous Australians since the bridge walks of 2000.

Join the ANTaR Virtual Bridge Walk for Reconciliation: bridgewalk.org.au

Share your thoughts: The Education Revolution

Words: Damon Klotz

The day one of my mentors introduced me to Sir Ken Robinson and his original TED talk was the day that I found my higher purpose. Tony Hsieh in his about to be released book Delivering Happiness writes about three types of happiness being pleasure, passion and higher purpose/meaning.

• Pleasure – My next high comes from public speaking and travel
• Passion – I’m engaged and time flies when I’m working on great projects and writing blog posts
• Higher Purpose – I realised this after reading Sir Ken’s book The Element. My purpose is to help instigate an education revolution both in workplaces and the education sector

That’s why I need to share with all of you his latest TED Talk recorded earlier this year that was released this week to the public.

I encourage you to watch the whole video, if (which I highly doubt) Sir Ken doesn’t achieve his learning revolution he could take up a career as a stand up comedian as he has the crowd laughing throughout.

But on a more serious note, his talk is amazing and it is up there with Jamie Oliver’s Food revolution as a modern day crisis that requires action now. I say this as I was somebody who struggled through both the schooling system and intially the university sector. I survived thanks to a passionate teacher in High School who encouraged and challenged me and a mentor in university who is a big Sir Ken fan. So I have managed to scrape through and come out the other side and find my passion. I consider myself lucky, but others may not have those amazing people in their life at the same time and might end up doing something they hate for the rest of their life. This simply isn’t good enough anymore.

My first priority is to bring an education revolution to workplaces, Zappos is all over this with their education pipeline by creating a workplace that develops and nurtures great talent which leads to a workplace full of passionate people.

I also want to help take on the challenge that is modern day schooling and help bring on an evolution that creates schooling environments that fosters learning and to make it a place where children want to go and challenge the ideas that are put to them. Does anybody sometimes wonder when they hear about all the problems of violence, bullying, drugs and skipping class is because the students are bored and unchallenged?

So I challenge you to:

1. Watch the video
2. Share the video with your friends and contacts
3. If you know of people within education or teachers make sure this video ends up with them as they need to be aware of this and can help bring change from the frontline

Lets share the message and help bring on a revolution! Remember, the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single click.

—————————————————————————————————————

Our debut guest post come from Damon Klotz (@DamonKlotz), whose Twitter bio describes him in this way: QUT Graduate – HRockstar- 21 -Nomad -Linchpin – Tribe Leader- Story Teller = A right brain leaning HR graduate looking to rework, engage and crush it!

If you would like to “Share Your Thoughts” as a contributor, please email sarah.moran@brisbane.qld.gov.au

Gastronomy Gal

Gastronomy Gal is a Brisbane blogger who shares her love of food with avid readers with an equal passion for all things food. in her own words:

“I am not a food expert- I am just a food lover, and so want to share my love of food with you.”

Who are you? Give a complete stranger a brief snapshot into your world…

I’m a 23 year old girl living in Qld, my adoptive State. I’ve been in BrisVegas for 5 years after moving here from my cute country hometown in NSW. I work in Communications/PR and write my own food blog. I also write columns for an online magazine.  I’m pretty infactuated with all things food (hence the food blog) and spend much of my time trawling around restaurants/providores/food festivals/wine & cocktail bars in Brisbane looking for awesome food and wine to blog about. I also blog about the occasional horrible experience too! Whilst I love eating out, I love cooking in my tiny kitchen with one of my many cooking appliances, re-planting my herb garden after it is inevitably eaten by possums, and reading one of my new books or old vogue, delicious or gourmet traveller magazines.

Get Visible: if there’s anything else you’d like to add, speak now or forever hold your peace!
It’s great to see that Brisbane is really surging ahead in the food stakes. It’s no secret that we have been about 20 years behind the other states but we are starting to catch up. I’m really happy to report on all the triumphs happening in QLD – be it restaurants, produce, wineries or anything food related. We are now represented by a small but savvy contingent of food bloggers and people are starting to understand the value of good food. It’s also fabulous to see such a young element to the dining/food scene- lots of enthusiasm and vigour which is really shining through.

Check out the Gastronomy Gal blog at http://gastronomy-gal.blogspot.com/

Jaleesa Pon

Jaleesa Pon is founder of M.A.D4Teens magazine.  M.A.D4Teens explores a wide range of issues that are important and relevant to young people; relationships, money, happiness, fashion, sport, arts (music, dance, painting, media), travel, health & social life.

Jaleesa Pon holding the first issue of M.A.D4Teens

• Jaleesa Pon. 20 year-old Brisbane local.
• A Multicultural girl of PNG/Chinese heritage.
• The oldest of 4 kids.
• Love food and spending time with family and friends.
• Huge fan of the arts – I enjoy the theatre, ballroom dancing, playing piano and singing.
• Travel rocks my world! One of my life missions is to travel overseas at least once a year every year … that’s how much I love it!
• A broadcaster on the multicultural youth radio show “Oxygen” (Radio 4EB 98.1FM).
• I work in the finance industry and am revelling in the challenges.
• And I also work with like-minded young people who are committed to the same things.

What are you working on right now?

M.A.D4Teens Magazine – the magazine that is Making A Difference.
It’s a magazine that is independently created and publised by a team of young people for other young people to enjoy. It exists to give youth opportunities to:

1. gain work experience in working behind the scenes of a publication;
2. be featured in the magazine and be recognised for their talent(s)
3. form friendships with like-minded teens
4. & meet influential figures in the industry

I’m also working on the building of an educational, encouraging and interactive online community for youth.

When do you feel at your best and when you feel at your worst how do
you get through it?

I feel at my best when I honour my word and fulfill on the committments I’ve made AND
also when I know I’ve made a difference to another and left a smile on their face!

When I feel at my worst, I have a look for what happened that had me get down (the situation / event / circumstance).
Then I give myself the freedom to be upset/uncomfortable etc. and allow myself to be a ‘drama queen’.. BUT only for a few minutes!
Then I simply get back in action and get on with what needs to be done next. Nothing can be accomplished when you wallow in things that have already happened.

Where do you see yourself in five years time?

In 5 years time I see myself as a bold entrepreneur; building businesses and working in/with various communities around the world, making a difference to them.

I also see myself married, in a healthy financial position, continuing to work with the team of M.A.D4Teens Magazine, learning another language and still travelling… of course!

Why do you do what you do?

What I’m committed to is transforming the world through empowering and enabling young people.  I want to make a difference to the youth community.

WHY?
Because youth are the leaders of our future and are the people who will be responsible for what happens in the world… and when I turn on the news, I want to see a world that works. Not one that is full of pain; poverty and wars.

How have you been able to do what you love?

By managing my time and by always taking the next steps.

Get Visible: if there’s anything else you’d like to add, speak now or forever hold your peace!

To find out more visit www.mad4teens.com.
You can also follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/mad4teens

2 Degrees launch

A new piece of artwork emerging from Brisbane’s inner-city is “2 Degrees” – named to express the close networks of people within Brisbane and how collaborative projects often highlight “who knows who” in Brisbane.

One of the zine’s contributors, Angelica, said the zine kicked off to a good start and has a lot of potential.

A piece of Angelica's artwork included in the zine

“It’s a really good platform for people who just want to get something out there. it’s great to be able to contribute something small to something larger than I could create on my own,” Angelica said.

A number of contributors joined Visible Ink Valley tenants and staff to celebrate the creation of the zine, which has been developed over the past 9 weeks on Wednesday afternoons in the VIV Zine hub.

“I think it’s important for people to be creating something in Brisbane, no matter how small – even if it’s just a post-it notes worth of an article. It’s important for young people to contribute to and have a say in Brisbane culture as it develops,” Angelica said.

You can come in to Visible Ink Valley and grab a copy, read the zine online and check out pictures from the launch below.

If you’re interested in contributing you can find out more about the Zine Hub here.

2 Degrees: Zine

2 Degrees

You can come in to Visible Ink Valley and grab a copy and check out pictures from the launch here.

If you’re interested in contributing you can find out more about the Zine Hub here.

2 Degrees: Zine

live: arts // culture // events

LIVE is a new name for an old favourite – City Entertainment. Brisbane is leading the charge to become a creative and vibrant new world city, and our thriving arts and cultural scene helps highlight this. Whether you entertain or want to be entertained, LIVE is for you to enjoy.

Enjoy reading this booklet and to find more events for and by young people, check out our “Calendar of events for young people in Brisbane”.

LIVE – Creative Communities

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