Every year, one Year 10 student from each Brisbane High School, whether public or private, is invited to attend the Lord Mayor’s Youth Advisory Council, or LMYAC. Representatives of the LMYAC are set to embody their school and community and are prompted to direct attention towards rising, or pre-existing issues for people in their age group, and are to voice their ideas for prevention while encouraging proactive strategies aimed at lowering the severity of these issues.
It strives to foster and develop strong leaders, and by meeting with like-minded students, can route the way for communication and management skills, to create meaningful changes. Meetings occur four times throughout the year, one each term, although students are encouraged to further connect with their peers outside of meeting times.
Year 10 student, Summer Bennetts, was QACI’s chosen LMYAC delegate for 2024 and has provided her insight from the induction meeting held earlier this year.
On Wednesday 21 February, I was given the opportunity to represent QACI by attending my induction meeting for LMYAC at Visible Ink Youth Club. This introduction gave me a chance to meet and connect with my fellow members from around Brisbane and share my thoughts, perspectives and issues in my ward. We began by grouping together by wards and discussing over-arching issues that we had commonly experienced in our area, as well as city-wide concerns. We shared these thoughts, ideas and opinions with the entire group of students and alumni and began planning possible advances to create a better Brisbane.
One of the first and most obvious issues that was continuously brought up was the consistency of vape use at schools. We discussed how many of the stores that supplied the E-cigarettes were strategically placed around school districts and suggested potential solutions such as establishing a legal distance between schools and these stores or installing vape/smoke detectors in each bathroom location at schools would be a reliable option.
There were many more issues, such as adding more buses/bus routes for safer and easier travel, installation of activities, day or night, for teens to limit social media activity and even ideas of drainage options for less pollution in waterways, so we can grow and expand our ecosystem. Many of these ideas and options all point towards the diminishment of youth crime and safety in Brisbane and will be helpful in this age of mindless scrolling and boredom, leading us to a future of diverse, engaged and effective Brisbane citizens.
I can’t wait to discuss these points further with my inspiring, passionate peers, and I am looking forward to our first official meeting with the Lord Mayor, where we are able to bring these issues and our ideas to the spotlight.
Article written by Summer Bennetts, Year 10