Young people have a voice, but they’re often not heard.
It doesn’t have to be this way, however. UNICEF Australia, through its Young Ambassador program, gives young people aged 16-24 the opportunity to speak up for children’s rights and what matters to Australia’s young people.
This year, the organisation has 11 young ambassadors from across Australia, who are all working hard to promote and advance the interests of children and young people in the country across various advocacy areas. These include child and youth engagement, child and youth participation, climate change, digital wellbeing, education and First Nations social justice.
“Education is super important to making sure that children grow up to be healthy and productive adults for Australia,” said 2025 UNICEF Australia Young Ambassador Peter Susanto, who focuses on this advocacy area.
At the THRIVE National Youth Summit, he will lead a collaborative dialogue that seeks to inspire collective action on crucial issues affecting the youth. Third Sector asked him to give us some insights into the session.
What needs to change in the current systems for us to better support young people like you?
Young people are often sidelined and almost dismissed from having the ability to advise and be part of making a change.
I’ll give a quick anecdote about what I read in the news. There was a story about state guardianship, where the government is authorised to take control of someone’s life, often a young person. One young lady was put into the state protection despite being an independent person, and when she tried to escape from the state protection with her family, she was deprived of the right to have self-determination about where she lives and how she manages her money as well.
It’s just one example, but young people in general are often not sufficiently heard. Even if they are heard, there’s often an element of belief that perceives them as naive, not having the correct experience or having insufficient experience regarding what’s best for them.
From your perspective, how can we address youth issues such as employment, housing and mental health?
It requires a collaborative effort. I don’t think I’m the best person to speak to that, but I’m looking forward to being someone who can tie together the right people in the right supportive space to brainstorm, work together, find and develop solutions because these are huge issues. I’m excited to have the opportunity to lead and coordinate some great ideas to come out of the summit.
What role do young people play in shaping solutions to these issues?
It’s important to truly listen to young people internally, rather than just putting up an external facade of listening. There’s also an element of bringing into action the advice put together by young people and being able to balance it collaboratively with all other sectors of society. Young people are often very energetic and have lots of great ideas, so being able to use that positively in conjunction with other sectors of society and older people would be very powerful.
Right now, I see a large youth space and yet many organisations have only a specific person as their youth voice. Having greater youth participation amongst the general membership of an organisation and society itself is more important than just having a token youth representative.
What should people look forward to in your session?
The main thing to watch out for is active listening and the formation of common ground between all the people attending. In this way, I hope that we’ll be able to make solutions that we can apply and will be the root that can further develop into a whole tree of actions and improvements to the system to help not just young people but also our nation and society in general.
Join the conversation on overcoming systemic barriers and delivering coordinated solutions for young people to thrive. Secure your THRIVE 2025 spot now.
Geraldine is currently the Content Producer for Third Sector, an Akolade channel. Throughout her career, she has written for various industries and international audiences. Her love for writing extends beyond the corporate world, as she also works as a volunteer writer at her local church. Aside from writing, she is also fond of joining fun runs and watching musicals.
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