By Jasmine Jones

This year I’ve had the amazing opportunity to be a CCYP Ambassador. This has involved meeting with the Commissioner for Children and Young People of Tasmania and other ambassadors from around the state to discuss topics of concern and importance in the eyes of todays youth. This year we have had 2 regional meetings and on the 4th of October our state wide meeting took place at the Door of Hope, with over 100 ambassadors in attendance from across Tasmania.

We started the day with a quick briefing and a visit from the State's Premier before we were able to choose 2 activities to go to for our morning session. All of these were based on our 7 key topics that we decided as a group were most important to young people and the community and we had guest speakers specialising on each subject or issue. Our options were “Sustainable You, Sustainable Future” (Climate Change and the Environment), “The power of Gratitude, Kindness and Respect” (Equity and Diversity), “Making School a Better Place – where is the Voice of Student?” (Education and Opportunities), “Stop and Prevent Bullying” (Bullying), “Mental Health Survival Tips with Kids Helpline” (Mental Health) “Message Umbrellas” (Safety, Access to Necessities, Services and supports) and “Empowering Safety on the Road” (Road Safety). The first session I went to was about Equity and Diversity with Sarah Bolt, the Anti-Discrimination Officer, where we spoke about laws influencing kindness or a lack there of, discussing what we think could be done better and the importance of being grateful for what we have.

For my second session I went to “Sustainable You, Sustainable Future”. We talked about the leading factors in what contributes to climate change and ways that we could be more sustainable. This talk was given by members of the Tasmanian Climate Change Office. After this we heard from Toby Thorpe, a young Tasmanian climate change and sustainability advocate who spoke to us about his journey and where his passion began. We were then given the chance to individually brainstorm our own answers, ideas and solutions to a few questions which were all based around what we can do to make our world a more sustainable place, and how we could help prevent or slow the effects of climate change.

Later on in the day we were given the opportunity to speak to some of our State's political leaders and ask them questions. Cassy O’Connor, Rebecca White and Roger Jaensch were all there to respond to our questions and there were other leaders and important decision makers in the audience to listen. It was interesting to listen to their responses and learn more about hat our government is doing and what the individual representatives thought.

I strongly encourage anyone who gets the opportunity to apply for the CCYP Ambassador role to go for it. I’ve found the experience really enjoyable, I have learnt a lot and it’s a fantastic chance to use your voice somewhere it will be heard.