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Youth Leadership

Focusing on young people’s varied needs at local, State and Federal Government level, YACWA works to engender and enhance positive community attitudes towards young people. Our work is guided by the values of respect, equity, integrity and the celebration of diversity. An integral part of what we do here at YACWA is to effectively engage young people to ensure they are empowered.

Here are some of the more prominent projects we work on with young people:

Catalyst Youth SummitCatalyst Youth Summit

The Catalyst Youth Summit is an initiative organised by young people for young people. It is open to all young people from refugee or migrant backgrounds aged 18 to 25 living in Western Australia. The aim of the summit is to bring multicultural young people together to discuss issues important to them, create solutions and to directly express their opinions to politicians and other decision makers.

 

Hong Kong Youth Exchange

In 2016, The Department of Local Government and Communities (DLGC), Office of Multicultural Interests (OMI) and the Youth Affairs Council of Western Australia (YACWA) worked collaboratively to enable seven young Western Australians aged between 18 and 24 years the opportunity to participate in a bi-directional exchange program between Hong Kong and Western Australia.

The exchange program is an initiative of the Western Australian State Government and the Home Affairs Bureau of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government.

 

Shout OutShout Out Group

Shout Out is a leadership program for young people from refugee and migrant backgrounds designed to enable young people to speak up for themselves and share their experiences and views on a range of topics with a variety of audiences.

It provides an opportunity for inspiring young people to develop skills in public speaking and media relations on topics they feel passionate about.

For more information and to book a speaker, click here.

YEP CrewYEP Crew

YEP Crew (Peer Educators) is a youth-led program that aims to give young people opportunities to connect with other young people, get educated about issues that affect them and take action to make positive changes regarding sexual health, relationships and blood-borne virus issues in their communities.

The Peer Educators provide sexual health, relationships and blood-borne virus (BBV) education to other young people through a range of creative, engaging, and interactive strategies. They work together as a team to design and deliver online social media initiatives and outreach activities for young people in a variety of online settings.

Meet the team here.

Youth Disability Advocacy Network – YDAN

The Youth Disability Advocacy Network (YDAN) is an advocacy group for young people aged 12 to 25 living with a disability in Western Australia. The committee solely comprises of young people living with a disability, which aims to provide a voice for all young people with a disability on issues that they believe are important and have an impact on their lives. YDAN was established in the hope of providing a forgotten, ignored and under-represented demographic of the disability sector of WA the opportunity to be included and consulted in matters such as access to education, employment avenues, healthcare and the difficulties faced by this demographic and how to overcome these barriers to establish greater awareness, acceptance and inclusion of this demographic in the community.

YDAN Group YDAN Workshop

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2016: Inquiry into Aboriginal Youth Suicides

The Aboriginal Health Council of Western Australia and YACWA combine to discuss issues surrounding suicide amongst the young Aboriginal people of WA. This submission comes due to the growing risk of suicide in remote regions of the state. The vulnerability and necessary actions are discussed.

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2017: YACWA’s Analysis of the 2017 Federal Budget

YACWA has conducted a thorough analysis of the information available at this point in time, and extracted the key commitments and measures that we believe will have a direct impact on young people and the workforce supporting them in Western Australia.

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2018: Submission to Lower the Federal Voting Age

As meaningful cultural, social and economic contributors to Australia, YACWA believes that young people aged 16 and 17 should be afforded the right to participate in Australian democracy.

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2022 July 5 – Joint Media Release – SENDING WA CHILDREN TO MAXIMUM SECURITY ADULT PRISON IS LAST STRAW FOR BROKEN SYSTEM.