By Michael Doran
Each year, UN Youth Australia in consultation with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade select the Australian Youth Representative to the United Nations. Kareem El-Ansary is the 2019 Youth Representative and on Monday 4 March he visited Healesville High School as part of his National Listening Tour.
The Listening Tour is designed to visit schools across the country and listen to what young people have to say about the issues that are affecting them. In September Kareem will present what the youth of Australia have to say to an assembly of the United Nations in New York.
Healesville High Assistant Principal Laura Mitchell, said that she first heard of the program when contacted by Yarra Ranges council. “When we got the opportunity to be involved our principal, Allan Rennick and I were keen to make it happen.
Kareem said that more than 15,000 young people were heard in the 2018 program and he is hoping to reach even more this year. “Its difficult to say exactly how many young people we’ll be able to engage with but we’ll be working hard to meet as many as possible,” he said.
“I’ll be visiting young people in every state and territory in Australia and will also be engaging with decision-makers to shed light on the great things young people are doing across the country, the issues they care most deeply about and the ideas they have for creating positive policy change.”
The discussion at Healesville High started off with the group from years eight to twelve answering the question, ‘In our future I see? From there it continued on with brainstorming sessions where the issues most important to the group were teased out to become inputs for the presentation to the United Nations.
Speaking after the the visit, Laura Mitchell said that it had been an enriching experience for all of the students involved and was something they would build on in their student leadership programs for 2019.
“The students found it really pleasing that their views on important issues were listened to and taken seriously and for having the opportunity to express them in this encouraging forum,” she said. “For the younger students it was a great opportunity to hear and learn from the older students in an encouraging environment and that is something I found to be really positive.”
