Initiatives promote Sunshine Coast youth
Wed 02 September 2009
Jamie-Leigh Mason, Bachelor of Journalism
Youth on the Sunshine Coast have been given a chance to redefine themselves and get their issues heard through various initiatives aimed at fostering greater communication.
Former Australian Labor Party (ALP) Noosa candidate Brain Stockwell attempted to focus on youth issues in the last election, but admitted it was hard to compete with the media.
“Obviously, the media had a focus on what they thought the three or four main issues were on the coast,” Mr Stockwell said.
“It was difficult … to get the youth issues raised."
Mr Stockwell said one of his main issues in the election was not victimising youth, after his opponent called for more police to supervise youth behaviour.
“We didn’t need police. What we needed was more activities for Generation Y, more festivals and more organisation on the coast,” Mr Stockwell said.
Sunshine Coast Youth Partnership chief executive officer Jody Tunnicliffe was involved with many positive youth-based activities being run on the Coast.
“Our role is to report and communicate the youth action, which there certainly is here on the coast,” Ms Tunnicliffe said.
The Sunshine Coast Youth Council held an event based on the world 2020 Summit, which focused on the main issues concerning young people.
Ms Tunnicliffe said the four main concerns were drugs and alcohol, mental health, body image and self esteem and education, and that she was impressed because youth had identified the issues and also attempted to find solutions.
“They workshopped ideas, solutions and innovations,” Ms Tunnicliffe said.
In addition to the forum, a youth paper was also launched in June targeted at identifying and attempting to solve issues facing the youth of the Sunshine Coast.
Ms Tunnicliffe said the paper would “provide a forum and an opportunity for young people to talk about the issues that concern them and the things that were important to them”.
Mr Stockwell encouraged these initiatives, and hoped to see more planning aimed at youth on the Sunshine Coast.
“A lot of the planning is so focused on where they think we are going with the over 65s, they forgot that there is another whole age group,” Mr Stockwell said.
Suggesting that youth were the future of the Sunshine Coast, Mr Stockwell said there was still time to change these attitudes and beliefs.
“The future is something we have to create, the past was unkind and unfair, but we made it,” Mr Stockwell said.
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