Everyone experiences a little doubt now and then, particularly when those around you don’t offer you the kind of support you want (and, sometimes, need!) to push forward. We’ve both experienced this first-hand as we tell friends, family, and others about YFocus and how we want to progress the project. It’s amazing how quickly people are willing to put forward their suggestions and opinions in a negative way!! We could start a quote board that would look like the antithesis of those motivational posters you see up in doctor’s offices. In fact, we’re considering starting a business of selling anti-motivational posters. Imagine the riches and splendour that would follow! Of course, these people probably have good intentions, it's just hard to take when you are still trying to get an idea off the ground!
But, ultimately, these responses just help us to feel like we’re definitely on the right track with this project. We’re both optimistic, (relatively) smart, good looking (matt anyway) and (relatively) motivated people who care a LOT about our idea. However, if you’re a young person who has a great idea, but doesn’t necessarily have the kind of people around that would help you to pursue it (picture it now: why would you care about that? That is WAY too hard to talk about! No-one will listen to you! It costs too much! Etc. Etc.) AND on top of all that you feel like people only listen to adults anyway, it would be easy not to speak up.
We both want to give young people the chance to tell us what they care about and what they think should be done about it. But, this isn't about older people helping young people. We just have access to resources and information that we can use to help people out - this is not an age thing!
So, thanks all you doubters. You remind us how hard it is to try to change things for the better, but make us want to do it all the more! Also, in saying all of this, we’ve received some really great support from some wonderful people. So a big shout out and thanks to you guys! We can’t wait to continue to meet all of the people who are going to help us out and participate in YFocus! It’s going to be a fun ride!!
Thursday, February 4, 2010
YFocus goes live!!
Hello and welcome to our blog! To introduce ourselves, YFocus is a program started by Kate and Matt that aims to give young people the opportunity to connect around a social issue and to share their story of taking action. Lots of young people have ideas about making their world a better place, but in an adult-focussed society it can be difficult for them to get those ideas up and running. We want to make it easier for young people in Brisbane to tell us about the issues that are important to them by helping them develop the skills they need to advocate for change. Not only do we want to provide them with a space where they can discuss these issues but we want to provide them with facilitated opportunities to bring about this change with other like-minded young people.
This is an advocacy project for young people: we want to facilitate a process where they can identify the issues they are passionate about, develop the skills they need to tackle those issues, and have an opportunity to run a project that allows them, and others, to tell their story through photographs.
To get this idea up and running, we want to bring together a core group of passionate young people who will develop and maintain a website; work on some issues that are important to them; and spread the word and help other young people to tell their own stories. To help them get started, we will help them to get the skills they need (photography, web design, photoshop, development of web content, writing etc), and decide on the issues they want to tackle.
As a bit of background about who we are and what we do - Matt is a recent graduate of psychology and has been really involved in a number of non-profits. Given his experience with psychology, he can read minds and is in fact always psychoanalysing you....actually....no he's not! Kate is currently doing her PhD looking at young people who are in, or leaving, adult prisons. Unfortunately for both of us, we come across on paper as nerds. We're not going to lie, we are a little nerdy! But we are also both really passionate about giving young people a space to hang out, talk about stuff they care about and to be passionate and excited. We're really excited to get this project started and will do our best to update this blog regularly to share the story of our journey with YFocus.
This is an advocacy project for young people: we want to facilitate a process where they can identify the issues they are passionate about, develop the skills they need to tackle those issues, and have an opportunity to run a project that allows them, and others, to tell their story through photographs.
To get this idea up and running, we want to bring together a core group of passionate young people who will develop and maintain a website; work on some issues that are important to them; and spread the word and help other young people to tell their own stories. To help them get started, we will help them to get the skills they need (photography, web design, photoshop, development of web content, writing etc), and decide on the issues they want to tackle.
As a bit of background about who we are and what we do - Matt is a recent graduate of psychology and has been really involved in a number of non-profits. Given his experience with psychology, he can read minds and is in fact always psychoanalysing you....actually....no he's not! Kate is currently doing her PhD looking at young people who are in, or leaving, adult prisons. Unfortunately for both of us, we come across on paper as nerds. We're not going to lie, we are a little nerdy! But we are also both really passionate about giving young people a space to hang out, talk about stuff they care about and to be passionate and excited. We're really excited to get this project started and will do our best to update this blog regularly to share the story of our journey with YFocus.
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