YACtivate 2019

Attending YACTIVATE! 2019 was definitely a new and exciting experience for all four of us and the weekend had a succession of both good and interesting experiences. The weekend was planned to have everyone attend three workshops over two days with other activities strewn throughout.

Between us four (Caitlin, Margherita, Olive and Piper) we attended all the possible workshops

offered: Career and Goal Setting, Mental Health, Self-Empowerment and Public Speaking .

Aside Public Speaking, all the workshops were run by GSLA (Great Southern Leadership

Academy), an organisation of young people in leadership roles.

The information for the workshops run by GSLA was valuable and the presenters, experienced and qualified however the camp had a wide range of demographics (from 11 year olds to university students) so some elements of the workshops were exciting and fun but catered to younger audiences rather than high school and university age students, due to this we found that some presentations didn’t apply to

us as much as others.

The workshops were split in large groups so it was more difficult to talk one on one with the

presenters and a few presentations lacked an element of inter-activeness due to the high

number of kids in one session, however it was wonderful to hear from young presenters who are

successful in their field.

Of note: the event had us using lots of single use plastic or given unnecessary plastic items - it didn’t

seem environmentally friendly.

The actual campsite was beautiful and the perfect place with space for all the workshops, a

campfire and a large dining hall. The food and the way the days were organised was excellent.

Though some of the workshops fell short, other activities such as the Mocktail challenge led by

the Busselton LDAG (Local Drug Action Group), the public speaking workshop organised by the

Youth Officers and the final speeches were definitely informative and fun!

For the weekend, we had set out to meet and interact with other young people and YACs and

we definitely managed to do so, the opportunity to meet others was by far the most valuable

experience from the trip and meant that we were able to understand what other groups were

doing as well as share our own experience. We met some amazing people and did some major

networking as we were able to interact with groups close to us who we hope we will see again

soon!!

Overall, the contacts, friendships and ideas that came from the weekend were definitely

significant for the growth of the Fremantle Youth Network, for our own personal growth and

surpassed the negatives. We (Margherita, Olive, Piper and Caitlin) became closer and were

able to gather and create many cool ideas to apply to the network.