Ideas from the Heywire Regional Youth Summit 2013
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for you to$70,000 implement in these grants ideas. Application form inside! Ideas from the Heywire Regional Youth Summit 2013 Which idea will your community adopt? 1 summit CONTENTS 32 young regional Australians 02 About Heywire 04 My Heywire Summit 7 ideas ThE IDEas 06 Fresh Face Friday 08 Farmers’ Future 70,000 in funding 10 Getting the Balance Right 12 Breaking Down the Door 14 The Green Room 16 Keys Please Could your community put 18 Cutting the Red Tape 20 How the Grant Process Works one of these ideas into action? In February 2013, It’s also your chance An application form and to put the weight of more information on the READ 32 Heywire competition the report your community or grant process can be winners gathered in organisation behind one found in this booklet or Canberra to develop of the ideas and further at abc.net.au/heywire. ADOPT it or put it into action in ideas aimed at improving Could your community an idea your community. life for young regional benefit from one of Australians. This report Heywire and the these ideas? APPLY Foundation for Rural Adopt it, adapt it for for funds presents the ideas and and Regional Renewal your local community the stories of the young (FRRR) have partnered and apply for a grant! innovators behind them. to offer grants totalling ACT up to $70,000 in seed make it happen funding for successful community organisations that apply to adopt one of these ideas. ABC Heywire is a powerful platform for the stories and ideas of young rural, regional and remote Australians. ABOUT HEYWIRE PARTNERS It is the ABC’s partnership with the Australian Government that makes Heywire possible. Thank you to our Government partners: • The Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation ABC Radio’s Heywire Regional Youth During the week, participants • The Department of Agriculture, Fisheries Summit has been held annually in undertake leadership and and Forestry Canberra since 1998, in partnership community building activities, and • The Department of Education, Employment with the Australian Government. meet with members of parliament, and Workplace Relations It is the culmination of the Heywire Government and community • The Department of Health and Ageing competition – open to people aged leaders. The ‘Heywirers’ share • The Department of Regional Australia, 16-22, living in regional or rural their views about the issues Local Government, Arts and Sport Australia, and designed to involve that matter to them, and work them in a national conversation. together to develop and launch ideas to improve the lives of young Heywire encourages young people to people in regional Australia. tell stories about life outside the major cities in text, photo, video or audio Highlights for the Summit format. Over the past 15 years more participants include: than 8,000 young Australians have • The opportunity to meet their taken part. local MP over morning tea at Every year ABC regional stations Parliament House choose a winning entry to represent • Meeting the Minister for their region. The winning stories are Agriculture, Fisheries and professionally produced by the ABC Forestry and featured on ABC Local Radio, • The opportunity to attend triple j, Radio National, Radio Australia, Question Time ABC TV and abc.net.au. • Visits to ABC Canberra and the The winners are invited to take part in Australian War Memorial the Heywire Regional Youth Summit, • The opportunity to be heard held each February in Canberra. The on ABC Radio National as part goal of the Summit is to give young of a live broadcast people the skills to have their voices • The chance to pitch ideas heard, not just on the ABC, but also in to an esteemed audience at their communities and in Canberra. Parliament House 2 Filled with excitement, 32 Heywire winners arrived in canberra for the 2013 Heywire Regional youth Summit, with the aim of developing ideas to improve life for young regional Australians. Friendships were forged, innovative pitches were made and important stories were shared. We were not only given a voice but found ears that listened. We came from all over Australia, The first challenge we faced was to We began to feel that change had never from far away Christmas Island to build a tower with only uncooked been more possible. Pitching our ideas the Gulf of Carpentaria, and from spaghetti sticks, string, sticky tape and at Parliament House put us right in Byron Bay to the Apple Isle. Each one marshmallow to perch at the top. front of the politicians, the powerful of us brought something unique The rules were simple: build the tallest decision makers. We showed our and special to the group. tower in less than 18 minutes. Sound audience just how insightful, In a supportive environment, we told simple? You would be fooled. In acts of resourceful and innovative regional and our personal stories. No matter how chaos and madness, only a few of us rural youth are when it comes to hard-hitting, funny or touching, every produced a standing structure. important issues. Many of our pitches story shared was one to remember. In a The point we learned was that an adult already have momentum and are on very short time, we bonded like glue, would attempt to make two or three their way to becoming reality! with trust, respect and understanding towers, whereas a five year old may Our experience with Heywire has proved for each other. Together we began to build up to 18 to get it right. It was a to us that we are capable of coming up tackle the challenges of the world lesson in unleashing our inner child so with compelling, practical and thought- (so it seemed). that we could spend the week building provoking ideas that really can improve and rebuilding our ideas until they the lives of people our age. It is our became the tallest towers. hope that as you read this document, Our ideas aim to solve difficult you will see the same potential within issues in our home towns, including us as well. the survival of primary industries, my HEywIRE SummIT drink driving, the lack of mental health education, unbalanced portrayal of youth in the media, poor body image and discrimination of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people. JARvIS Holt, KuRRAcA, cEnTRAL vIcToRIA on bEHALF oF ALL THE HEywIRE wInnERS 4 THE IDEAS my friends and I love the beach, but we don’t go too often because half of my friends are too embarrassed to take “Girls I knew with anorexia or bulimia formed their shirts off in public. I don’t think there is anything wrong with the way my cliques to compete for whose eating disorders friends look, but they don’t feel confident were the most severe.” enough to ignore what the media tells them they should look like. If Fresh Face Friday were to take off across Australia, I believe my friends would be encouraged by the message that we should feel comfortable in our own skin because FRESH FACE there is nothing wrong with the unique FRIDAY way each of us looks. Richard Baines BODY ImagE THE TEAM THE IDEA ADOPT. APPLY. acT! PERSONAL STORIES Brooke Mason Taroona TAS what if everyone could be comfortable in their own skin? Each year, our team will be running a Fresh Stephanie Beckedahl Kariong NSW bIEDAw (body Image and Eating Disorders Awareness week) aims Face Friday launch event at Shanna Beeton Taree NSW to renew the public’s focus on improving body esteem. To find out newcastle university on 30 August, Richard Baines Newcastle NSW if this week is well known, we asked a 50-strong group of people if 2013 and we encourage you to be part Shaye Fisher Portarlington VIC they’d heard of it. we were confronted with a resounding no. of it by coming along or simply by Michelle Badek Canberra ACT posting a photo of your fresh face on Our aim is to raise awareness about Since the Heywire Summit we’ve social media that day. this week through an initiative we’ve discovered a similar campaign we would like to see a not-for-profit called Fresh Face Friday. Fresh developed at a high school in America, organisation, perhaps one with Face Friday will ask women all over which also uses the tagline Fresh Face expertise in body image, adopt the Australia, especially those in the media, Friday. We’ve been in contact to see if Fresh Faced Friday idea and take it to go to work, school and uni without there may be potential to work together even further, by promoting it as a makeup for a day to show that they are in the future. national campaign, or by running comfortable in their own skin. Fresh We believe that Fresh Face Friday will events in other towns. Face Friday will be held on the last be effective and is viable because it is Friday before BIEDAW. organisations can apply for an FRRR cheap to kick off and promote, quick Heywire grant of up to $10,000 to So how can you get involved? On Fresh and simple to get involved with and has make this happen. An application Face Friday, share, like and re-tweet the a memorable brand identity. We pride form can be found at the end of this campaign message across social media ourselves on the fact that we aren’t booklet and more information about I grew up in the south of Tassie, where almost everyone knows each other. platforms. Show off your make-up trying to reinvent the wheel.