The Young Karratha Change Agents Program, supported by the City of Karratha and delivered in partnership with Regional Development Australia (Pilbara), engaged 121 students across Karratha to create 41 youth-led social enterprise ideas addressing challenges in their local community.
Through our Future of Our Regions Design Challenge, students stepped into the role of change agents, identifying local challenges, developing creative solutions and building the confidence to turn their ideas into action.
Future of Our Regions Design Challenge Workshops
The program featured four student design challenge workshops delivered directly in schools across the Karratha region, supporting students at Tambrey Primary School, Karratha Senior High School, St Luke’s College and the Pilbara PEAC Program.
First Nations students made up more than 40% of participants, with a further 18% coming from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.
Using design thinking, students explored real issues facing the Pilbara, from community connection and resilience to future career opportunities, health, food security and celebrating First Nations culture.
Their ideas ranged from Cyclone AI and What’s Up Karratha? to Saving the Ocean and AccessMed. Every team also published a public project pitch page to share its solution with the community.
“It gets you thinking and using your brain, exploring different ideas you might never have thought about.”
Program participant
“Young people sharing an idea or ideas can make a difference.”
Program participant
The impact went beyond the workshops themselves. Two student teams became finalists in our national Future of Our Regions Youth Design Challenge, selected from hundreds of entries across Australia.
Measurable Growth in Student Capability
Matched pre and post-program surveys from 50 students showed positive growth across all 13 entrepreneurial capabilities measured by Young Change Agents.
The biggest gains were in students’ understanding of the importance of enterprise skills, their willingness to take on new challenges and their understanding of social entrepreneurship.
By the end of the program, more students also saw themselves as entrepreneurs.
Empowering Educators
Educator capacity building was a key focus of the program. Local teachers participated in a full day of professional learning delivered as an immersive experience, completing the program activities just as their students would.
Matched educator surveys showed that average confidence and capability ratings increased from 2.9 to 4.3 out of 5.
The largest gains were in educators’ understanding of the key concepts of entrepreneurial learning and their ability to plan lesson sequences using entrepreneurial teaching strategies.
“The ability to confidently put the program into practice and be able to share it with my colleagues.”
Participating educator
“How excited I am that I took the opportunity that we were given and will be able to learn more.”
Participating educator
Participating schools have now been onboarded to a 12-month Young Change Agents Grow Membership, giving educators and students ongoing access to the Entrepreneurial Learning Hub, curriculum-linked resources and coaching support.
St Luke’s College has already confirmed that it will embed our Future of Finance Youth Design Challenge into its Year 9 business subject.
Watch the Story
Watch the video to see how this partnership between Regional Development Australia (Pilbara), the City of Karratha and local schools is empowering the next generation of community leaders.
You can also explore all of the student project pitches from the program here.
Community Benefits and Future Endeavours
The Young Karratha Change Agents Program has created a strong foundation for ongoing entrepreneurial education in the Pilbara.
Local educators are now equipped to deliver programs with new cohorts of students each year, while additional Karratha schools have already expressed interest in participating in future programs.
Thank you to Regional Development Australia (Pilbara), the City of Karratha, participating schools, educators and students for making this initiative possible. We cannot wait to see what these young changemakers do next.
To learn more about embedding entrepreneurial education in your school, contact the Young Change Agents team by emailing hello@youngchangeagents.com.