Future Voice

Originally published in The Nyngan Weekly

Members of Nyngan High School's student voice were able to have their say on the future of Nyngan at a collaborative workshop last week.

As part of a tour of schools conducted by the office for regional youth, students discussed what they would like to see change across Nyngan and the positives and negatives of living regionally.

Nyngan High teacher, Richard Milligan, said the workshop was a great opportunity to involve young people in future planning. He said it was important to talk with young people, not at them.

"I think they felt like they were listened to. That's probably the strength of it, that they we're given categories to think about in terms of different aspects of community life, like health and education, services for young people, transport, those sorts of things."

Students then brainstormed about problems with these categories in their community and different ways those problems might be solved.

Tasimbiswa Dhedheya, Linkon Sinclair, and Samuel Milligan represented years eight and nine at the session. Tasimbiswa said the student voice is a place for students at Nyngan High School to have their thoughts and concerns heard by teaching staff.

He said participating in the session was a positive experience and that it felt good to have a say in the future of his town.

Linkon agreed saying “it was pretty good to have a say in the future that we wanted and the things where we’d like to see change.”

Shania Dutschke was also in the session and said there were several topics that the group discusses, one being loose dogs across town.

It’s an ongoing issue that the Bogan Shire Council has expressed frustration over on Facebook, with loose dogs reported nearly daily on community pages.

“Transport was one [problem] we talked about, and how it’s not really safe to walk around town most of the time, especially with stray dogs and cats. So, we thought about a few solutions to that.

“I was happy to think about advising people to be mindful. that people are in the area as well.”

Shania said that loose animals across the town can deter young people from being out and about.

“I think it’s important because it’s about safety and I can get really scared to walk around town as well, especially because I am still young."

For Victoria Walsh, changes to current school transport arrangements are an important issue.

Living out of town, she catches the school bus in and out of Nyngan each day. However, her bus ride includes an additional 30 minutes each way collecting students from across Nyngan town.

She said that additional time is tiring when out of town students already have to leave home earlier and get home later.

"We have to do the town trip so it takes forever to get out of town because we have to add that bit to our bus."

Victoria said it would be beneficial to out of town students to have their own bus. Having a forum to express these concerns was important to her.

"It's good to get [our] opinion out and not just to have it as it always has been. Change can be a good thing," she said.

Year 11 students Tiana Backhouse and Siarra Chatfield joined the student voice this year as a way to have a say on their future and education.

Siarra said access to clean public amenities was something the group discussed that would benefit both locals and travellers.

"Public toilets around the community are pretty dirty and they also close very early, they're locked up."

The girls said with the new community centre opening soon they hope to see better collaboration between Bogan Shire Council and young people.

"Kids have different perspectives than what adults do and like we probably know more because we are kids and we talk to each other" said Tiana.

She hopes that the youth and community centre will give kids something to do and somewhere safe and warm to be.

Mr Milligan said the students were engaged well with the session and he was pleased to see collaboration across different year levels.

He hopes that these sessions will con tribute to genuine efforts to engage regional youth.

"I think that one thing that is noticeable is that there are sometimes funded programs that don't seem to deliver on the potential outcomes.

"At the end of the day, if young people aren't consulted about what could be the challenges, you might create a white elephant because they're not being listened to."