What’s happened at VIV?

Homeless Connect: a one day one stop shop for people experiencing housing instability. If you don’t have a stable place of accommodation to call home, you’re amongst 100 000 people in Australia. We were at HC working with RedCross and Council’s Access & Equity team, providing a range of activities to ensure all young people can get connected and active in the life of Brisbane.

Acting In and Acting Out: In partnership with Brisbane Youth Service and Griffith Uni, we grab  half a dozen young people who are connected to homelessness services, frontup on friday nights to Queens Park in the heart of the CBD, and start putting together ideas for short impromptu performances and theatre pieces.

PARKing Day. It’s not every day that Council turns a carpark into an interactive Clean and Green, car free hub for community discussion and a record of local history. As part of international PARKing day, the Youth Team worked with QUT design students to transform the car park at Council’s Visible Ink Valley youth space into a park for a day. VI Valley coordinator Ryan Foster said, ‘not only did we see people leaving footprints on a giant book in our carpark about what they thought was important to Fortitude Valley, but we saw local residents, visitors and workers sitting down, interacting and chatting about their connection to the Valley.’  To find out more about PARKing day and to see pictures of other brisbane PARKs, visit http://www.brisbaneparkingday.com/ or www.brisbane.qld.gov.au to find out about other ways Council is contributing to a Clean and Green City

Youth Strategy Workshops. When the Youth Team started developing Council’s strategy for ensuring all young people are involved in Brisbane life, they didn’t realise just how passionate young people were about contributing ideas. With numerous group consultations with young people, Council staff and the local community, the Youth Team have almost finalised the strategy but are continually recieving a diversity of young people’s ideas about how Council can better work with young people across the city. One such consultation was held at Council’s Visible Ink Valley youth space, attracting a small but diverse group. Project Officer James Douglas said ‘it was great to have a diversity of young people contributing ideas. We had uni students, self employed and young people who’ve experienced homelessness, working together to set the direction of the strategy’. It is expected the strategy will be finalised by the end of the year and endorsed in early 2010. Once endorsed, it will guide the whole of Council’s work with young people and will be downloadable from www.visibleink.org.

Youth Decide. An initiative of the Australian Youth Climate Coallition (AYCC), the Youth Decide project surveyed over 37000 young people nationally about what future they wanted to see in Australia, and what climate policy the Fedearl Government should adopt to realise this future. Locally, Council’s Visible Ink Valley youth space offers AYCC subsidised office space, and were excited to support the project. Customer Service Officer Chrissie Nowland said ‘ the project is an amazing opportunity for young people to advocate their prefered futures to the Australian Government. In support, we offered a carbon neutral lunch (organic raw foods) to entice young people to cast their vote online in our public computer space and we’re excited by the amount of conversations the project sparked between people that use our facility’.

Spring Shanninigans was an all ages music extravaganza organised by a committed group of 10 Young Producers and 2 event managers through a partnership with Valley Studios and Visible Ink Valley. With some lead in events management training for 10 weeks, the team of 16-26 yr olds put on one amazing drug and alcohol free all ages showcase. With over 100 punters, the gig showcased 5 young emerging bands (including Avaberee all female highschool outfit playing one of their first shows) and proved that not only are more local all ages neccessary, but that with a little training and support anyone can learn some skills to host their own all ages event.

Acting Out is all about getting out and exploring the diverse world of theatre in all its crazy forms. In partnership with Brisbane Youth Service, we grabbed  half a dozen young people, fronted up on friday nights to Queens Park in the heart of the CBD, and started putting together ideas for short impromptu performances. The project also introduced young people, local police and laws officers; ensuring stronger relationships between everyone involved.

ChillOut Workshops flooded the school holiday period with all activities at Visible Ink Valley booking out well in advance. Excited 10-17yr olds turned up to learn hiphip dance, fencing and karate to name a few…..parents that waited nearby were cautious that no-one tried combining all three! Getting active and healthy is what its all about and you can find the next lot of Chillout workshops here.

The Youth Enterprise Symposium took place at the State Library Queensland with nearly 100 young people accelerating their business and social enterprise ideas. Check out the YES07 summary report. Since then, there have been numerous smaller events run by young people, including the ignition of the Young Entrepreneurs Society networking events. Click here for all current Youth Enterprise programs. 

4zZz Radio training:
young people learnt skills to produce their own radio shows and podcasts. the podcasts were broadcast on Radio 4zZz 102.1fm, with one participant landing a regular on-air shift from the experience.

Homeless Connect: a one day one stop shop for people experiencing housing instability. If you don’t have a stable place of accommodation to call home, you’re amongst 100 000 people in Australia. We partner with RedCross at each event to offer activities for young people that can develop new skills and connect them into future activities and learning.

Island Vibe Festival: some of Visible Ink’s wonderful partnering tenants presented the third annual Island Vibe festival (formerly known as Island Time) with one of the most exciting lineups of Reggae, Soul and Roots culture in the South Pacific at the magical location of Point Lookout, Minjerribah (North Stradbroke Island).

Virtual Newsroom- learning theatre & video skills to rehearse, create and broadcast young people’s ideas over our online virtual newsroom set in the year 2026. Some pretty amazing ideas flourished amongst the group.

Screech Theatre- In partnership with the Cerebral Palsy League, a live stage show was performed by a sharp group that had never performed infront of an audience before.

The first and only City Romp took over the streets of Brisbane with 9000 people galavanting across 50 venues within the CBD. Visible Ink saw over 1000 of those rompers come through, answer criptic clues and challenges, all in the name of being the highest scoring challenger in what was coined ‘part amazing race, part treasure hunt’. Romp day proved hugely successful, both in terms of raising money for the Burnett Institute, and for raising the profile of Visible Ink. Check out the full Romp website.