Meet the region’s young leaders

HOW much do you know about the City of Greater Bendigo youth council?

Seventeen young people between the ages of 15 and 24 years old make up the current youth council, which youth mayor Cr Jack Smith said is a professional and personal development opportunity for the region’s young people.

“What we do is work with other community groups and with council to make sure that young people have the opportunities that they need to thrive in Greater Bendigo and around Victoria,” he said.

“One of the ways that we do that the most is from a strategic and policy end. We give a lot of feedback on a lot of council strategies from the perspective of young people, strategies like the Health and Wellbeing strategy… lots of internal council documents that young people never get to see and they’re never consulted on.

“From another perspective we also work on our own projects which is really exciting.”

Past projects included a series of online Q&A events during last year’s COVID-19 lockdowns with young leaders like Eppalock Ward Cr Matthew Evans and Victorian multicultural youth commissioner and former Bendigo youth mayor, Khayshie Tilak Ramesh.

At the beginning of their two-year term, current youth councillors formed working groups, each led by a chairperson, on the issues most important to them.

“The 17 of us decided on what our four top priorities were going to be for this year and those are education and employment, wellbeing, youth representation and advocacy and environmental sustainability,” Cr Smith said.

Young members of the public also join these working groups in an effort to promote community consultation and input.

Meeting in the council chambers fortnightly, Cr Smith said the youth council follows a similar process to that of their seniors.

“We have a briefing where we get community members and stakeholders to come present to us about either ideas or ways they want to work with us, or if they want to consult with us on how they’re doing their work and how that works with young people,” he said.

“Two weeks after that we have a meeting where we go and vote on all of those things.”

Currently, Cr Smith said the youth council are in the planning stages for community projects around mental health and LGBTQIA+ young people.

A regional and rural youth forum is also in development, aimed at bringing together emerging leaders from across the state next year.

“We’re trying to run a forum in Bendigo hopefully at the start of next year, it’s never been done before, where we get youth councils and youth advocacy groups from all around Victoria so we can advocate to State Government, which is something young people in these roles have never had the opportunity to do,” he said.

To get into contact with the youth council, visit yobendigo.com.au.