Young Global Change Agents

Young Change Agents amplifies the voices and work of young people and creates opportunities to ensure their impact reaches a worldwide audience.

PARTNERSHIP WITH AVENUES MEGHALAYA, INDIA

In 2024 Young Change Agents partnered with Indian social enterprise, AVENUES Meghalaya, to build and strengthen entrepreneurial learning pathways with Northeast Indian youth aged 14-18.

In February 2024, we officially launched our partnership. 23 senior Government officials and leaders from India and Australia were in attendance at the Melbourne launch event. This included The Hon. Consul General of India VIC, The Hon. Chief Minister of Meghalaya, Australia India Business Council and Australia India Youth Dialogue.

In February and March, Young Change Agents contextualised our design thinking and entrepreneurship program with AVENUES staff in India. Our focus was First Nations youth and educators in Meghalaya.

Nine of AVENUES’ core team members worked with Young Change Agents to design and contextualise a local entrepreneurial education pathway, building from Young Change Agents’ existing programs. Together, we contextualised the curriculum, impact framework and learning materials to AVENUES’ local context.

51educators, curriculum designers and project management staff then participated in a Train the Trainer session led by AVENUES’ core training team and supported by Young Change Agents.

This program is planned to start with local students and teachers in August 2024. 250 youth will participate across 5 local schools, in three districts: Khasi, Garo and Jaintia Hills. Programs will be led by 5 AVENUES staff, together with 4-5 local teachers from these schools.

SOUTH KOREA

Young Change Agents empowers teachers across the world with the knowledge, confidence, experience and resources to facilitate entrepreneurial learning in their own schools and ecosystems.

In early 2024, the Korea Institute of Startup and Entrepreneurship Development (KISED) organised an educational trip to Sydney for 13 teachers who are in charge of operating the South Korean Government-supported ‘Bizcool’ (Business + School) program. Young Change Agents took the group through a three-hour Train the Trainer session, immersing them into design thinking. We facilitated a Q&A to encourage knowledge sharing of best-practices across Australia and South Korea.

NEW ZEALAND

In March-April 2024, Kura Cares NZ began running Young Change Agents’ $20 Boss Program after a discussion with us about its needs with Māori youth. A pilot was co-created with Papakura High School in Auckland. We provided Kura Cares with $20 Boss toolkits. Teachers delivered the program using our facilitator guides. Kura received professional development to build their capability to deliver $20 Boss.

We openly discussed linking $20 Boss to Māori values including Tikanga - the values, priorities, and ways of doing business in a values-first and impact-centred way, which is the foundation of the $20 Boss Program.

SOCIAL ENTERPRISE WORLD FORUM

In October 2022, Young Change Agents delivered workshops at the SEWF - Social Enterprise World Forum C.I.C. Youth Forum in Brisbane.

We ran two design thinking workshops where we encouraged participants to find solutions to the following question: How might we create innovative solutions to tackle climate change?

As part of our mission to amplify youth, we invited Alice and Tate, two Year 10 students from Pacific Pines State High School to co-facilitate the program.

In January we also gained our Social Traders Certification. As a result, we have created partnerships with organisations that prioritise social procurement initiatives such as The John Holland Group. We launched our first Industry Intrapreneurship project with the Northwestern Project Alliance/ Level Crossing Project, led by the John Holland Group, in June 2023.

CHANGE THE GAME FOR INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS: STUDY NSW

International students face many challenges including housing, employment and building connections in Australia. Early in 2023, Young Change Agents’ proposed to StudyNSW a program which provided these students with the opportunity to identify the root causes of the problems, create business models and pitch their ideas for seed-funding.

The design question posed was, 'how might we design a better experience for international students?' More than 30 international students from universities across NSW, came together to ideate solutions to challenges they faced across three key areas: employment, housing and connections.

Four finalist teams were invited to pitch their ideas at the Study NSW Career Expo to a panel of experts across education and entrepreneurship. The winning team, ISH (International Student Hub), received $1500 in seed funding from Study NSW to develop their idea further with the support of mentors and local community experts.