By Mitchell Clarke
The future of Cardinia was given a golden opportunity to have a say in the day to day work conducted by Cardinia Shire Council.
100 grade six students from across the shire gathered at the Pakenham Hall on Wednesday 11 September to celebrate the 2019 Student Leaders Conference.
Planned and ran entirely by the students, participants took part in team building activities and consulted with a number of council teams including recreation, outdoor space, environment and ageing well.
Students even took on specialist roles for the day including media liaison, greeters and music and audio support.
Cardinia Shire mayor and children’s ambassador Graeme Moore was delighted by the success of the day and was excited to see what the next generation of leaders had in store for the community.
“It was amazing to walk around the hall and hear all the student’s excellent ideas, as well as seeing their enthusiasm to become capable and collaborative leaders,” Cr Moore said.
“The kids are really excited to be here and the warmth I’ve felt from them has been really nice.”
Pakenham Consolidated student Jackson said it was important to listen to children in the community because they provided a different perspective to adults.
“Children have a good perspective. We’re going to be the next generation of leaders and one of us might become the Prime Minister,” he said.
Meanwhile, William from Beaconhills College said the conference was an opportunity for students to not only grow and develop as leaders, but also to feel they had a voice in local activities and for schools to come together.
“The conference gives young leaders the opportunity to develop their skills and grow confidence. By sharing our thoughts and ideas with council, we’ve been able to develop a sense of identity as young leaders and develop our complex thinking and decision-making skills,” he said.
“Students from different schools came together and got to know and work with each other, which doesn’t happen enough. We can now take this experience back to school and encourage other students at school to participate in local events.”
Kooweerup Primary student Amelia said the activities were important as they got people talking about how to make the community accessible for all.
“In the activities we got to draw what we wanted in our parks, sort what rubbish goes into what bin, share ideas about how to include the elderly in our day-to-day community life, and learn about trees and the environment,” she said.
“Adults should listen to us because children have a different perspective on life and we have, most of the time, pretty good ideas.”
The ideas which were presented to Cr Moore were largely related to bringing more outdoor facilities to the shire.
“They talk about skate ramps and activities and that’s what excites me more than anything because they want to get away from the TV and mobile screen and actually do things physically,” Cr Moore said.
“We are giving them the opportunity to have some input into those outcomes and if we can do that, we’re doing our job.”
In 2015, council endorsed the Victorian Child Friendly Cities charter and have since endeavoured to provide children with opportunities to become involved in making decisions which affect them, their communities and their wellbeing.
“In adopting the charter, council wished to highlight the importance we place on listening to children’s voices,” Cr Moore said.
“It’s really nice to get a perspective of what our young people want, we hear a lot from our more senior and our middle-aged people but the younger people come from a different aspect so to see that and document it for the future, it’s an honourable thing to be involved in.”
