Use Your Outside Voice: Young Changemakers

In a rapidly changing world, how do we identify and address the immensity of issues coming to the surface? What role do young thinkers play within the local and global community? Civics and citizenship is more than just political knowledge. It’s an active engagement with the world around us.

It’s time to make change. It’s time to use your outside voice.

It’s easy to buy into the typical image of our youth; apathetic, disengaged, social media obsessed. But the truth is much livelier. Young people are passionate, aware and active members of our community, ready to be empowered.

So, what does it mean to be a changemaker?

The issues we face today in our communities and global environment are challenging. The scale of our environmental damage and social issues can be overwhelming. There is no simple solution, but by building our skillsets and thinking together, we can turn small, real changes into big differences.

This exhibition is the result of the work of ten participants of the Picture Justice Australia program. Empowered through Design Thinking to address what it means to be an active citizen in their communities, they took part in an immersive, creative workshop program that included photography, design, ethical interviewing and writing. These storytelling and problem-solving skills supported their understanding of changemaking. We want to share their journey – and their ideas – with you. Their journey and growth demonstrates that our problems, no matter how big, have solutions–we just need to start small.

Awareness is the initial drop in the lake. The ripples of small individual actions grow into big collective waves of positive change.

This research output is the booklet that went with the exhibition, published with an ISBN.