Australia

Ellie Seckold, RYC for Australia:

Ellie Seckold has been a youth advocate for over ten years. Involvement in representative councils, youth groups and leadership programs has cemented her interest and passion in advocating for young people.

After completing her degree in International Social Development, Ellie has been working on and off for the last five years in Fiji in the youth and development sectors.

Enhancing the lives of youth in the Pacific has always remained high in her priorities. Living in the Pacific she discovered that young people in the region weren’t given as many opportunities to make decisions about their future and were often low on the priority list of many governments. Additionally, they were often underrepresented at regional and international levels leading other countries to forget that young people exist in the region or believe that everything was OK in these ‘island paradises’.

Ellie has designed and implemented successful youth leadership programs through her work at the Fiji Council of Social Services. These programs have focused on peer mentoring, confidence building, decision-making, exam preparation and anxiety and dealing with pressures often faced by young people. Ellie believes that there has been a growing trend that during these crucial times of schooling, young people have lacked the support and encouragement needed and have often turned to other ways of dealing with this stress. She also develops and implements capacity building programs for many disadvantaged groups and other civil society organisations.

Ellie worked for the Fiji Cancer Society in 2006, an organisation that has seen many children and young people affected directly and indirectly by cancer. Ellie thinks that it is admirable to see how young people have the strength to cope if given a little support and nurturing. She does admit that her work also came with great sadness.

During her times back in Australia, she worked intensively with young people ‘most-at-risk’ of disengaging from education, employment and training. This, she saw, was an opportunity to witness young people create their own futures, with a little encouragement, from situations that were often confronting and intimidating. ‘The thrill to see some of these young people pull themselves up from the circumstances they found themselves in and make something of themselves was magic’ Ellie says.

Through these career experiences, Ellie recognises the need to ensure that young people have the opportunity to experiment with their talents and have fair access to opportunities that allows this. ‘Lack of employment for young people remains a common issue for young people in the Pacific. There needs to be a concerted effort in setting up alternative avenues so these young people can shine in their community’ Ellie says.

Ellie feels very humbled to be selected to be part of a group of Pacific young people trying to change all this around. ‘Instead of the ‘doom and gloom’ that is often portrayed about young people in the media, let’s see if we can convince the media and our community to celebrate the talent and innovation young people can contribute to our region and internationally.’ Ellie looks forward to the continuous two-way learning she will gain from being involved with such talented people representing their countries as RYC members.