ouryoungheroes.org.au is live!

Having just completed a fairly involved project to help Brightest Young Minds revitalise their website. I felt it time to try and set up an idea I've been talking to people and thinking about for over 5 years now.

When I first become interested in Youth Leadership it wasn't something that really was accessible unless you were already involved in through people you knew. It was only through a very proactive effort to find and meet interesting young people locally that I found out about some really inspiring young people and the amazing things they were doing. Through observing their actions and achievements I was able to reframe my own perspective on what I could meaningfully do as a young person, and begin to find out and take advantage of opportunities to do things about things that mattered.

ouryoungheroes.org.au is a website that I wanted to exist when I first started getting involved in Youth Leadership -- to make it easier to be inspired by the actions of others, and to find out about opportunities to get involved.

But thinking more deeply. It really wasn't the lack of information that prevented me from trying to actively influence the world around for the better. It was my own perceptions and those around me that was the limiting factor. Today many young people are frustrated with the way in which the media can show young people in a very negative light. Given how easy it is to generalise about a group once removed from it (as you grow older), the issue of balance in the coverage of young people becomes an issue as this can be some people's only source of information about young people as a collective.

ouryoungheroes.org.au is a website that can demonstrate the positive side of today's youth, not as a one off individuals, but as a collective and representation of many.