The Plot
I was lucky enough to be invited to the ruMAD? National Youth Ambassador’s Conference 2007, in Melbourne. Our action involved running workshops for children (10 – 16 years) about global poverty (as part of antipoverty week).
Our adventure began on a Tuesday afternoon. (I hadn’t flown in ages, so I was super excited about catching a plane…)
Photographer : Tourist from Sydney
Anyway, the real work (o wait, does having fun count as work?) started on Wednesday morning. After waking up nice and early, our trek towards the NAB community centre began. We opted to take a 35min walk from the hostel to soak up the Melbourne air (and get a nice work out…).
Photographer : Tourist from Sydney
After setting up our beautiful area, we were ready for our busy/fast-paced day.
Photographer : Tourist from Sydney
The day kicked off with a very inspirational speech by Dan Evans, initiator of the
MakePoverty
History campaign, and he’s only 20!
The Workshops
The workshops consisted of:
1. Finding out what everyone already knew about poverty
2. Envisioning a world without poverty, through some very creative and impressive collages.
3. Brainstorming things to do and taking action to reduce poverty.
Photographer : Tourist from Sydney
Definitely had a great time! Although we called it a ‘work’ trip, I wouldn’t really classify it as work. For some reason, work has a negative connotation attached to it (i.e. *sigh* I have to go to ‘work’). It was a really enjoyable experience, and that’s what I think action should be all about – having fun but making a difference at the same time.
The workshops with the kids were really interesting and I learnt heaps. Learnt new facts about global poverty. Found out about working with children (it's not as hard as you may think it is) and how to run an effective workshop (they were pretty energy packed, fast-paced workshops!...all good).
It was inspiring to see what some of the children came up with - the collages were very creative! When I was 10 years old…I would be at home watching Cheez TV in the morning, power rangers in the afternoon, playing pokemon at night and trading magic cards on weekends. For a ten year old to put his hand up and tell me facts about global poverty was really cool. Definitely future actnow members!
