A number of East Gippsland Shire
Council Youth Ambassadors will compete in this year’s YMCA Youth Parliament.
The team of Katie Stewart, Sarah Collier, Brodee Turner, Michelle Perry,
Danica Lunavich and David Storey-Mills have developed a bill on an issue they
are passionate about and will present it to the Youth Parliament.
Youth Parliament is a program run by the YMCA in which 20 teams,
comprising 120 young people from across Victoria, draft a bill and attend Youth
Parliament. East Gippsland’s team represents a diverse group of local youth
that are passionate about raising awareness of issues affecting young
Victorians.
The team is looking forward to debating their bill proposal within
the highest level of State Government.
As part of the program’s application process, the Youth Ambassadors
submitted three bill proposals. The team’s
selected bill, titled “Entrepreneurship Classes in Secondary Schools”, aims to
create classes that educate teens on essential business and life skills,
promoting creative thinking in the process.
Aims of the classes are to show entrepreneurship as a potential
career path to young Australians and increase employment opportunities to
students who don’t necessarily wish to pursue tertiary education.
The team recently travelled to the YMCA camp in Myrniong to
undertake a two-day intensive training session to prepare for their week in
Parliament. The camp, while being a lot of fun for all participants, also included
workshops on the inner workings of Parliament in order to help each team better
understand the process of debating a bill in Parliament.
Youth Ambassador Sarah Collier said the team is excited to be a
part of such a unique experience.
“This is such a great opportunity for us as a group to voice our
opinions within State Government, ensuring that the voices of our local young
people are being heard,” Sarah said.
Brodee Turner is also enjoying the Youth Parliament program.
“I feel so privileged to
have the opportunity to learn so much from this great program and am looking
forward to the rest of it,” Brodee said.
The Youth Ambassador team looks forward to representing East
Gippsland and advocating a bill with the potential for positive change for the
youth of our region.
(Left to right: David Storey-Mills, Katie Stewart,
Sarah Collier, Michelle Perry and Brodee Turner. Absent: Danica Lunavich)
