With under-25’s making up one third of Wagga’s population, community leaders are trying to find ways to get them involved in the future of the city.
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Councillors Vanessa Keenan and Dan Hayes put forward a notice of motion at this week’s council meeting, asking staff to come up with ways to get young people involved with planning and decision making.
“At the moment we don’t have any formal channels for young people to engage with council and as they make up a third of our population, that’s a significant voice we’re missing,” Cr Keenan said.
“There’s a huge opportunity to engage with them and get more input.
“We acknowledge the work council already does but we’re looking at sitting down with young people and working with them to find out how we can better engage.”
Committee 4 Wagga chief Chris Fitzpatrick said there was a lot of potential in the city’s youth, but they didn’t always get a chance to show what they could do.
“If there’s an environment created for young people to express themselves it will be a good start,” Mr Fitzpatrick said.
“But we need to make sure they’re not all put in the one ‘youth’ bucket – there are all sorts of demographics that need to be recognised and engaged.”
The concept of establishing some sort of youth advisory committee was broadly welcomed by councillors, but former mayor Rod Kendall said there needed to be an effort made to reach a broad cross-section of the community.
“We need to make sure we find different voices, don’t just get the school captains,” Cr Kendall said.
Cr Paul Funnell applauded the idea of broader youth consultation, since council made a number of decisions that affected the city’s future.
Cr Keenan it was important to support and encourage a variety of methods to get youth involved with council and public life.
“It’s not one size fits all,” Cr Kendall said.
“The formal structure of government can be quite intimidating in so many ways, but we want young people to participate and chat about what’s best.
“But it’s quite clear from all councillors that everyone supports greater engagement and it’s something we want to do and do properly, not just pay lip service but provide resources and enable young people to participate.”