jillian alice

Go on, get addicted 20-11-2009 12:44

Have just finished off an articles for Three Things, the newsletter ActNow sends out to community groups, on the latest craze in internet gaming - the activist game!

If you're into procrastinating (who isn't?), then do it for the greater good with some of these A-grade fundraising, educating, point scoring newbies. Greenpeace International have some good ones, although they are a little blatant. Try your luck with evil publicity agents, creating nuke-free zones,  and 'the world's favorite humpback whale.'

If you're in the mood for improving your IQ, give Free Rice a try. Helps your brain, helps the World Food Programme, and doesn't cost you a cent! I don't like patting well paid marketers on the back, but a DOUBLE thumbs up for whoever came up with that one. In fact I'm going to go play it right now.

Believe it when I see it 12-11-2009 03:40

I've just returned from an event relating to the one and only Kevin Rudd's 'national conversation' with two of the ActNow team. The National Conversation is your chance to offer up some opinions on youth issues, which the government then promises to take into consideration when developing its national strategy for youth.

For those of you who for some reason haven't been keeping up to  date with the ActNow website, but are with my blog (do you even exist?), the national conversation has been plastered all over the ActNow and Reach Out sites. This is because the Inspire foundation have been offered the opportunity to partner with the big guns on this one, and are helping the government write the final report.

Anyway, so we just went to a live version of one of these conversations in Sydney with the Minister for Youth herself, Kate Ellis. Sadly, but not surprisingly she and her event staff seemed far more concerned with photo opportunities, what the papers would say, and that if the voting age was lowered we would all be voting for Labour than what young australians are actually concerned about. After all, according to todays hi's and bye's from Kate, the current governments are the only ones to have ever attempted youth participation like this before. So if they do fail, or just ignore us, its excusable because hey, at least they're trying.

The government does get points for at least inviting young people. Besides, it was nice to see some youngins at least feeling like their opinions mattered.

The Big Issue 23-10-2009 03:32

At this time of year, it seems the whole world is plagued by the privilege of university assignments, and no one, anywhere, ever seems to be enjoying them.

I'm normally no exception, but today I have one exception. As part of one of my writing courses, I undertook an interview with one of the underfamed Big Issue Vendors in Sydney. He came to talk to me on his birthday, and was extremely generous with his time and his words. The result, was not only a pretty alright assignment (I'll let you know how it goes. Maybe.), but also a few lessons learnt that I've saved up for here:

The Big Issue has a circulation of around 8000 a fortnight. For the amount of vendors busting their asses on streetcorners for 40 hours a week, this is not a lot. In fact, it's dismal.

Why aren't people buying my favorite mag? According to my vendor interviewee, people are just uninformed. They don't know what it's for, what it's about, basically, why they should buy it. For this reason, I encourage you all to give 2 minutes of your online lives and have a look at The Big Issue website. Then I want you to take 2 minutes out of your real lives, and have a chat with a vendor. Just say hello, let them know they're not invisible. Send $5 their way if you can, and take home a read far better than freaking MX (which just seem to wind up as litter. MX may be entertaining for about 2 seconds, but that was once a tree people. Absolute props to the guy in central station picking them off the ground the other day for recycling, everyone do this too!!)

Once you're hooked (or if you already are), buy someone else a copy or convince them to do it themselves. If everyone who bought the magazine got a friend into the habit of doing the same, we could double that circulation no worries. We could put more dollars in the pockets of these super deserving, hard working folks, and take something home too.

You may see this in 'Action' form soon.

Plugging my own articles 16-10-2009 11:29

A Sunday or two ago, I was handed some tickets from the Inspire crew to attend some event that required tickets. That turned out to be one of the magnifique Festival of Dangerous Ideas seminars by the one and only Susan Greenfield, a Brit/scientist extraordinaire.

The topic was on whether or not technology was damaging the young and impressionable minds of kiddies in particular. With the release of guidelines  a few days ago recommending young tots shouldn’t watch any TV before they reach the ripe old age of 2, the talk was particularly relevant.  I don’t want to  go in to too much detail here, but for the arguments and my thoughts you can check out my write-up of the talk here.

Youth engagement seminars 02-10-2009 03:12

Week 2, and despite some minor setbacks (courtesy of my flatmates cooking), I'm going strong. Today I have been dissing out the 'how to' on e-zines and scrolling through other people's blogs trying to steal their ideas for posts. Interesting for me, but not the most 'blogable' day. Which is why, I'm not going to tell you a thing more about it.

Instead, you're going to hear all about the A-grade 'Youth engagement seminar' the ActNow team ran on Wednesday for people that fill the two demanding roles of  (a) NGO youth participation officer and (b) Sydneysider.

The day focused on getting golden oldie professionals to involve more youth in their "youthwork." I.e. listening to what youth want, and involving them more in the decision process, rather than dictating some lame-ass activity. I was really surprised, and am quite stoked to report, that the research on what youth are thinking and drooling over really rang a bell.

Normally, PHDs don't do much for me, but 10 points and a gold star sticker to Pippa from Inspire for her bullseye research on the inner workings of the young person's mind. Pippa spoke a lot about govenment vs not for profit approaches to youth participation, and how young people conceptualise these two different groups. If you want to have a closer look, I believe there are some lengthy reports available on the Inspire website.

Youth Action Project! 25-09-2009 11:35

As part of the up and coming youth action project, a couple of ActNow folk are taking on the role of action mentors - encouraging young people involved in the action project to persevere and get the most out of their action!

As part of the process, action mentors are undertaking a "mini-action" ourselves. As such, I'm taking on poverty in the pacific.

A mammoth task? Yes, but from little things big things grow. To get started on my huge vision. I've devised this smaller action for the week ahead:

Write an article on the benefits of ethical and environmental tourism for local people for a local newspaper, magazine or website. This will inform people of the problem of poverty in the Pacific and one way to help reduce poverty - empowering small communities by supporting locally owned and operated tourist ventures.

Apart from learning a little bit more about the region and the idea of community based and ethical/enviro tourism, I hope to prove to myself and my friends that even small efforts matter. I think the hardest part will be sourcing and convincing someone to publish the article, but we'll see how it goes. Fingers crossed.

Very first day as an ActNow Intern & I'd like to tell you about some CD's. 21-09-2009 04:31

As the brand spanking new 3 things intern, I've been enjoying the free internet access in the ActNow office. After sifting through the obscure and delightful world of hyperlinks, I can deliver you this gem with confidence: http://www.playingforchange.com/. I've already bought the CD and if you want to be cool, you'll do the same.

For those who are a little bit into music that does more than just sound nice, have a look at Australia's very own Choir of Hard Knocks at http://www.abc.net.au/tv/hardknocks/. They're so good I'm wearing their T-shirt. Otherwise John Butler and Missy Higgins are continuing to support the Close the Gap campaign, and their CDs can be purchased from the lovely Oxfam Shop.

Next time I'll blog about something more intern-y, promise.