Lost Generation

This video has been viewed over 13.5 million times on YouTube. It speaks to a lot of young people, including a number of those involved in the Brisbane Youth Environment Network.

The Brisbane Youth Environment Network (or BYEN for short) have used this video in presentations to high schools to communicate how they feel and to invite anyone who would like to be involved in their work to join the BYEN team.

BYEN has been meeting at Visible Ink Valley on the first Saturday of each month and generally attracts high school age young people interested in being involved in creating a sustainable future in Brisbane.

The Brisbane Youth Environment Network began as an outcome of the Lord Mayor’s Youth Advisory Council in 2009. Last year, the team developed the idea of “Is this beautiful? Is this inevitable?” as a way of communicating environmental sustainability messages that resonated with a younger audience.

Interested? To find out more, check out the info page on BYEN here or contact the team at brisbaneyouthenviro@gmail.com.

You can also download the BYEN fact sheet to share with your friends here.

Lord Mayor’s Youth Advisory Council 2010

Welcome to the Lord Mayor’s Youth Advisory Council 2010

The Lord Mayor is currently inviting High Schools in the Brisbane area to nominate a young person for the 2010 Lord Mayor’s Youth Advisory Council, or LMYAC for short.

What is LMYAC?

The 2010 Lord Mayor’s Youth Advisory Council will provide an opportunity for young people in Brisbane to become involved in civic issues as well as fostering an interest in grass roots community issues. Young people will identify issues and engage with each other through the Action Initiators and regular LMYAC public meetings at City Hall. Young people will also be encouraged to provide feedback and give their opinion about Council policies, local laws, services and programs that effect young people across the city.

2010 Meeting Format

4 LMYAC meetings are held throughout the year (1 held every term). Meetings will be chaired by the Lord Mayor and discussions facilitated by the Youth Team. Young people will be given the opportunity to provide input and share their ideas on 3 – 4 Council initiatives during the workshop component of each meeting.

How will young people provide input and raise issues?

LMYAC delegates will act as representatives from their schools and communities, and be a voice for raising issues or sharing ideas that affect young people in Brisbane.

Young people will have access to the following mechanisms to provide input and raise issues or ideas: -

1) LMYAC meetings: Young people will directly be able to raise and explore issues or ideas with the Lord Mayor.

2) Action Initiators: A tool for young people to raise community or group issues. Delegates will engage and work with their friends, family, teachers and school peers to raise specific issues that Council should be responding to.

3) Better Brisbane Challenge: An avenue for LMYAC delegates to raise ideas as a collective. Young people will be encouraged to work with other LMYAC representatives to develop ideas into proposals to present to the Lord Mayor at LMYAC meetings.

Our Lord Mayor’s Youth Advisory Council Experience

Hi! My name is Mac Lyon and along with Julia McMahon I initiated the Free 4 All Skate Park workshops.

The initiative behind this idea came from my younger siblings who are keen scooter riders.

They would love to use the skate bowls but feel that the older kids who hang around these areas are intimidating and therefore they are not comfortable going there.

As a result the Free 4 All Workshops came into being. Julia and I promoted the event on the 31st October by visiting the local primary schools with flyers, articles in the school newsletters and speaking on assemblies.

I also organised the local Quest newspaper to run an article about the proposed workshops. I was a little disappointed when they did not include it in the paper leading up to the event, but they have since run the story and from this I have had even more kids interested in attending the next one.

I think that Mark was excellent, really good with the kids and seemed to keep them very focused. I think that although the older kids were advised as to what was planned they still hung around and a couple of bigger kids continued to use the bowl amongst the younger ones. I thought a banner of some sort perhaps Visible Ink or such would have been a good idea and perhaps the presence of the local police may have supported our aim.

As for improving it perhaps some prized for participation and having a go or even getting a local business to support it with refreshments/snacks could be good.

Overall I was really pleased with the outcome and am looking forward to the next one. It was great to see the younger kids enjoying the Skate Bowl and feeling like they too belong there.

Mac

The Gap State High School

Acting Out

Acting Out is a theatre group that creates opportunities for you to perform and have fun.

For a year now, Acting Out has been taking theatre, fun and games to the streets of Brisbane to offer young people the chance to develop their skills.

After many years of Public Space becoming less accessible and performance classes more expensive, Liminal Performance Group, Visible Ink and Brisbane Youth Service are bringing acting to young people of Brisbane, especially those who don’t have stable accommodation.

If this is you, come along to King George Square on Thursday arvos to be involved, or just watch. Fun and support provided.

Where: King George Square

When: Thursdays 5-7pm

Dates: 21st Jan, 28th Jan, 4th Feb, 11th Feb

Questions: BYS on 3252 3750

If it’s raining, it’s off!

Young People Defining Brisbane

Brisbane City Council’s youth program, Visible Ink, is looking to showcase young people who are doing interesting things around Brisbane. If you’re an active young person with a story to tell we’d love to show off your stuff on our website!

Acting In/Out Project

Acting In and Acting Out…

Is theatre with young people who have an experience of homelessness.

On Friday nights is Acting Out in the city – a focus on having fun in public space, meeting new people and showcasing a positive profile of young  people who have an experience of homelessness.

On Thursday afternoons is Acting In at Visible-ink Valley – a crew of young people who are developing a public performance. They have already taken their performances to Valley Fiesta and are set to ignite the 2High Festival in November….we’d love you to come see the show.

Street life unleashed in creative festival

A group of young people experiencing or at risk of homelessness will share their experiences and outlooks on life in a performance at Brisbane’s 2high Festival this month.

The “Acting Out” performance has been created through a theatre program of the same name that aims to provide young people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness with drama skills and opportunities to express themselves.

The project is run by Liminal Performance Group, a group of young freelance arts facilitators, with support from Brisbane City Council’s Visible Ink (Valley) youth program and Brisbane Youth Service, with funding from a Council Community Grant.

Project facilitator Amy Bradney-George said the 2high Festival performance would showcase the creative talents of the young people and the facilitators.

“Being a part of the 2high Festival has given the young people we work with a platform to share their experiences of what life is like,” she said.

“The performance is also an opportunity for us to share what Acting Out is about, so it’s rewarding for the participants and for those of us working as facilitators and managers of the project.”

Participants of the project bring their unique experience in living and surviving with homelessness, which will all be used as material to develop the final performance.

Hugh “Irish” Bedford, a participant in the project said Acting Out had helped him move forward this year.

“When I joined this project I was living through hell. I was on the streets, sleeping in fire escapes and parks carrying my entire life in one bag on my back.

“I was reliant on the youth services operating in Brisbane for everything from being able to shower and shave to just getting something to eat,” he said.

Bedford said the 2high Festival had given him something to work on, and that the final result was due to the “unbelievable amount of hard work and commitment that has been put into the project by everyone involved.”

“Through our performance we hope to raise awareness of the harsh reality of life on the streets and the impossible struggle young people on the streets face in order to get out of their situation.”

“I also hope that people will see that although I lived on the streets for almost 7 months I am not a failure or a bad influence on society,” he said.

“Now that I have been given a chance to be a constructive part of society I have embraced that chance and made a success out of it.”

Due to the nature of homelessness the group of young people has evolved and changes over the performance development process.

The creative process used in Acting Out was shaped to accommodate the changeable nature of homelessness and allow more young people to contribute to the performance.

The result is an innovative piece of theatre that will move throughout the Brisbane Powerhouse, engaging and involving the audience along the way.

Acting Out will be performed at 2:30pm on Saturday, November 14, at the Brisbane Powerhouse as part of the 2009 Brisbane 2high Festival.

Multicultures Project

What is Multicultures?

The project is based on a framework consisting of three Key Values identified by the student body:

RESPECT, FRIENDSHIP and SHARING

and three Leadership Elements:

1. Managing Yourself
2. Connecting with others
3. Making a difference in the wider world.

About the project:

• a three-year participatory action research project – 2009 is the third year
  based at Sunnybank State High School, one of the most multi-cultural schools in Queensland
• a multi-platform approach to community development in a school context
• uses a range of arts-based activities (eg. drama, music, photography, visual arts) to engage students, teachers, parents, and community leaders
• addresses a variety of needs identified by the school
• whole of school approach, with a strong focus on students as future leaders
• intended to lay the foundation for ongoing community development within Sunnybank SHS, and extension of this work into other highly multi-cultural schools with similar needs
• a partnership involving Sunnybank State High School, Mt Gravatt PCYC, Brisbane City Council Youth Team, private consultancies, and community organisations

Aims:

1. Create a more cohesive school culture
2. Improve self-esteem and self-awareness for students, encouraging all students to perceive themselves as “leaders”
3. Identify key values the students wish to see demonstrated in their school and enhance the expression of these
4. Strengthen the engagement of parents and the wider community with the school

You can find the reports for each of the projects here: 2007, 2008 executive summary and the full 2008 report.

Check out our videos of the multicultures project: The Multicultures Project (an overview) and Cultural Leaders.

Youth Strategy Refresh 2009

The BCC Youth Team is just about to start re-writing the Youth Strategy for Brisbane, and we really want YOUR input. This is your chance to directly affect the future of Brisbane for people aged 12 to 25…

The following survey may look a bit drab, but rest assured your answers and thoughts will be used directly to write the new Youth Strategy, plus it’ll only take about 5 minutes.

And we’re always happy to have a chat, if you want to get in touch or drop by one of the Visible Ink spaces.

A2Z :: Living in a Connected City

A2Z: Thinking About an Accessible City

A2Z is a young person visioning project that is an example of how young people in Brisbane are describing what an accessible and connected city means to them. Young people from Aspley State High School leadership group planned and implemented an experiential learning session about young people and transport.

The group travelled from Annerley to Zillmere using public transport, followed by a session developing a vision of an Accessible City in 2026.

“The experience helped to get fresh in our minds what it’s like for young people trying to access transport in 2006. We caught taxis, a ferry, a City Cat, walked, rode tandem bikes, caught a bus and a train.”

A2Z Participant, 2006

Documented by a digital story and presented to the Lord Mayor and Councillors, the young people had their say about the future of this city and what connections should be made to make it easier to get around.

The participants explored transport around a few core themes. These were:

• Encouraging alternative forms of transport

• Nice, happy, helpful staff

• Electronic ticketing

• Accessibility and availability of information

• Young people participating in their communities and in decision making

You can read about the experiences of these young people in the A2Z Report, or have a quick look at the project snapshot…

Imagine Brisbane :: Thinking about City Design

Imagining a city designed for subtropical living…

‘Imagine Brisbane’ was a peer research project on the future of Brisbane conducted in 2005 and 2006. The research team consisted of nine young people from our city: mostly SpeakOut design students. They learned about city design from landscape architect John Mongard, Jabba and Justine from Nova FM taught them interview techniques, and they learned to use audio and video gear.

Equipped with these new skills, the nine participants interviewed over fifty young people from different parts of Brisbane: about their experience of the city, what’s important to them, and their hopes for the future of this city. The research team produced a short film called ‘Imagine Brisbane’ that expresses in their own words the thoughts, feelings and opinions of young people about their city: now and for the future.

This project report and project snapshot provides a summary of the film that was produced and the ideas that were shared. You can also check out the film here to find out how young people are visioning the well designed future of Brisbane.

Visible Ink Space Stories Issue 1

Visible Ink Valley

Last week on a Thursday 16 marginalised young people turned up early to Visible Ink Valley for the first time. They were involved in the City Lens project – a project that skilled them up in photography to take pictures of Brisbane for part of the B150 celebrations. Michael, who’s 15, arrived 45 minutes early because he didn’t want to be late. He said he’d always loved taking photos and couldn’t wait to learn form a professional photographer and take pictures of Brisbane that meant something to him. The project runs for 2 months with an exhibition in May.

Mt Gravatt PCYC

I (Drew) have been working with local, young refugees developing their sets for 3 upcoming gigs –
• ‘Beat the Rap’ at RAILS DVD launch at Mt Gravatt PCYC on the 20th of March.
• The “Youth Arts Showcase’ on the 4th of April
• ‘African Speakout’ performance at Holland Park library on the 18th of April.
It has been interesting watching their attitudes change as they realise that the support and encouragement they give each other helps to develop skills and promotes a real sense of community and understanding. We are hoping to record an album/EP to promote their talents and to sell to friends.

LINX Youth Space – Wynnum

- Recently LINX Youth Space re-established a Youth Voice Committee, a group of young people who will assist LINX staff to organise and deliver an annual Bay Wave Youth Festival in the Wynnum/Manly community.
- Youth Voice Committee meetings are held every fortnight (on Wednesday) and provide an opportunity for local young people to learn skills in event management, fundraising, sponsorship, writing etc.
- The expected outcomes for young people involved in the Youth Voice Committee include an increase in self esteem/confidence, young people have a say in projects in the local community and strengthening team skills.
- When asked what the benefits of participating in the Youth Voice Committee are young people said they wanted to have a say in community projects and youth festivals because “we are teenager and we know what teens want”.
- Bay Wave Youth Festival will be held on the 16th of May at Lota Skate Park. Young people will have an opportunity to showcase their skills including music performance, skate and BMX competitions and a variety of different activities and workshops all for free!

Visible Ink Albert Park

Albert Park has been a part of the Red Cross Beyond Crisis project for the past 18 months to 2 years (Theresa and Paul on the Reference Group). This project is in its second year of planning and redirection/evaluation. Red Cross has been able to expand its training and short course opportunities for young people this year. Albert Park has a number of young people who have signed up for driver’s education, RSA, cooking etc. But in particular Red Cross has expanded to include opportunities for Business Admin School based traineeships for which 3 young people applied and are currently part of an interview process (all 3 were short listed). The Red Cross workers are committed to continuing to build relationships with young people and are intending to spend time at Albert Park on a regular basis.

BCC – Edmund Rice Strategic Planning

I (Steve) had a conversation with Kate Joyner from BCC Strategic Planning this morning. She’s done some work around partnerships and pitfalls. Paul Toon and I will meet with her in the next couple of weeks to explore ideas and options for the future. This is in response to the need to revisit the Edmund Rice – BCC relationship in light of leanings from the last three years.

Key questions:
- What is Councils commitment to young people at the margins?
- How best do we serve the needs of that group?
- What is the best use of limited resources?

Future possibilities revolve around a clear understanding of what constitutes a healthy, mutually beneficial partnership and application to this group would be would be a better understanding of how partnerships work.

The Space @ Indro

Last Friday afternoon we held an afternoon tea at the Space to celebrate International Women’s Day. Including me, seven women of different ages, backgrounds and community groups attended. There were some wonderful discussions about women’s issues around a table of food. New connections were formed between local women and the idea of a fortnightly women’s group at the Space was further discussed. With some new energy behind this idea hopefully a regular women’s art day will soon be happening in the Space, with art the purpose of the gathering but with the hope that this will lead to a space for women to discuss relevant issues and support one another.

I (Nina) was recently approached by Spiral Community Hub (through another connection I have with them) about the possibility of using the Space as a base for fair trade products and a youth enterprise café. The café would train young people in hospitality skills and run as a business. We’re unsure at this stage whether this is feasible. But it has opened up possibilities not previously considered for the Space including that maybe there is potential for one agency to lead development of the Space.

Visible Ink Zillmere

After turning 12 a young person from Aspley High started accessing Visible Ink Zillmere to use computers, play video games, hang out with staff etc. Workers invited him to be involved in revamping the space. Since first accessing VIZ there has been an obvious shift in his behaviour and confidence, he has made connections and friendships in the space and has started organising video games competitions, sharing music and movies with other young people and is now showing an interest in organising activities in the space on a Wednesday and Thursday with support from our staff.

Black Diamonds

We are currently looking at the Black Diamonds program within the Indigenous Aspirations Team. What began in 2000 as a Sport and Rec initiative from a recommendation of the Black Deaths in Custody Report now includes arts, culture, sport and recreation for young indigenous people and their communities. The Black Diamonds program has the capacity to be broadened and expanded to include more initiatives in skills development and cultural pride building, potentially more budget and visibility in the community and Council. Already with proven outcomes in youth leadership and belonging, the aim will be to enhance more young people’s experience of this.