It's always weird listening back to a recording of your own voice but I got over that pretty quickly when invited to organise the first ActNow radio forum on Melbourne's Student Youth Network (90.7 SYN FM).
First off I met with Panorama Executive Producer Georgia Ride and we threw around some ideas for the show. We had both noticed an increase in stories on refugees and migrants in the news and thought multiculturalism would be a pertinent topic to discuss. I had a particular interest in this issue because I come from a mixed cultural background and have friends of many different faiths and ethnicities.
Georgia worked our ideas into a radio show format and I set out to find some guests. I knew Thao Pham, a good friend of mine from way back, would have lots to say on this issue. Thao was born in Vietnam and came to live in Australia when she was six so she could speak from personal experience. I had also recently received an email about Medley Mag from its editor Georgina Dimopoulos. Medley Mag is a new online magazine sharing the diverse cultural experiences of Australia's youth - a perfect match for what we wanted to talk about so I invited Georgina to be our second guest. It was that simple!
We pre-recorded the forum at SYN's studio at RMIT University: Georgia asked the questions and Thao, Georgina and I gave our opinions. ActNow member Daniel Pettet sat in on the recording session to see how it was done (tune in for the next ActNow forum on Feb 9, which Dan will be hosting).
What I loved about this experience is that we got young people together who knew something about an issue and were out in their community taking action on it. Our guests were just like other young people you meet at school or at a party but they were speaking like experts in their field. I found that inspiring, it made me want to find out more about current affairs and the issues surrounding multiculturalism. It was so interesting to hear Thao and Georgina explain their opinions on government policy or share their experiences with newly arrived Australians. I learned so much about the issues from our conversation - it was so much more fun than reading the newspaper!
