2011 Young Social Pioneers

Amy Craig: ‘the cup project’

Amy is the founder of ‘the cup project’, which profiles young Australian artists on takeaway coffee cups in Melbourne. ‘the cup project’ seeks to form connections between the wider tea and coffee drinking community and young artists, and in turn increase recognition of the work created by young artists living and working in Australia. Read Amy’s bio.

Anania Tagaro: The Darwin Youth Organisations Network (DYON)

Concerned by the absence of a distinct voice on youth issues in Darwin, Anania heads up the Darwin Youth Organisations Network (DYON), an initiative of Multicultural Youth Northern Territory, that unites organisations across the city with the common goal of affecting change in the issues that matter most to Darwin’s youth. Anania recognised that youth organisations were competing with one another for exposure and moved to forge an allied landscape where resources, skills and ideas could be shared. Read Anania’s bio.

Benjamin Hamley: Smart Artz

Benjamin is the Queensland project manager for Smart Artz, a highly collaborative youth-led agency with a focus on inspiring creative thinking. Smart Artz places a focus on communicating with young people by placing them at the centre of everyday problems. “You can’t expect to just create something these days and hope it will reach the right market – you need to engage, authentically, at every level,” Benjamin said. Using human-centred design techniques, Smart Artz encourages young people to actively participate in the development of campaigns, products, services and messages that are directed towards them. Read Benjamin’s bio.

Brodie McCulloch: Social innovation in Western Australia (SiiWA)

Brodie McCulloch is the founder of Social innovation in Western Australia (SiiWA), a non-profit organisation that supports entrepreneurs, communities and businesses to deliver social good through innovative means. To do this, SiiWA coordinates and facilitates support, resources and mentoring for anyone with socially positive ideas. “I’m hoping our relationships with government, corporations and non-profits will allow us to connect social entrepreneurs who are doing good with organisations that have the resources,” Brodie says. Read Brodie’s bio.

Carl Scrase: The Wemakeus Collective

Carl is the co-founder of the Wemakeus Collective, an Australian organisation aimed at raising the profile and importance of creative thinking in the public mind. Wemakeus is committed to engaging Australians to think creatively and believes a creative thought process gives people the ability to see a world of possibilities instead of a world of constraints. Read Carl’s bio.

Dominic Greenwood: Major Raiser

Dominic is the founder of Major Raiser, a not-for-profit project that aims to raise awareness and funds for charities and organisations through live music. Major Raiser unites and celebrates young bands and artists to cut through the clutter of what Dominic calls “conventional fundraising initiatives”, preferring to connect with young people through live music. Major Raiser works towards building a network of wellbeing by harnessing relationships with young members of the community and providing them with the opportunity to engage with various charities and organisations. Read Dominic’s bio.

Lachy Ritchie: Dismantle

Lachy is the founder of Dismantle, a project that uses the process of recycling bicycles as a medium for generating positive social change. The most powerful part of this project is demonstrating what happens in the journey from junk to bicycle; it is through this experience that Dismantle changes people’s perspectives of the world around them. Dismantle teaches people the skills to turn waste into opportunity and useless into useful, with the hope that it will have a flow-on effect to all aspects their lives. Read Lachy’s bio.

Laura Egan: Enterprise Learning Projects (ELP)

Laura is the founder of Enterprise Learning Projects (ELP), which creates enterprise opportunities for people living in remote Aboriginal communities to achieve their aspirations for economic participation. ELP provides a first point of contact for individuals and communities who have ideas that they want to explore and develop into sustainable businesses. “ELP’s model allows people to come together, select an idea they want to pursue, learn how to develop it into an income-generating enterprise, link it to networks for specialist support and maintain the work for the long-term,” Laura said. Read Laura’s bio.

Nerida Lennon: The Whispering Threads

Nerida is a model who is working to educate and inspire the fashion industry to operate in a more sustainable way. She is the founder of The Whispering Threads, which aims to drive consumer awareness and demand for sustainable fashion, while supporting the industry to meet that demand by educating it about the opportunities and challenges to move to sustainability. Read Nerida’s bio.

Rowan Kunz: Uni Australia

Alarmed by statistics showing that one in five university students quit or change their course in their first year due to dissatisfaction, Rowan Kunz launched Uni Australia, a project developed to help high school students make a more informed decision about tertiary education options. Uni Australia has reached out to tens of thousands of students at all universities across Australia since the project launched in July 2010. The aim: to ask university students to share their experiences about their course and broader tertiary experience, and to provide a resource for high school students to discover what university is really like from a student’s perspective. Read Rowan’s bio.

Steph Woollard: Seven Women

Seven Women is a fair trade wholesale and retail business that sells handmade felt and knitted items as part of a grassroots development project that empowers women through income generation. During a trip to Nepal, Steph met seven women with disabilities who were operating out of a tin shed and experiencing harsh discrimination. Together with these women Steph created a women’s skills training centre, where women learn skills that empower them economically. Read Steph’s bio.

Tessa Henwood-Mitchell: Tia International Aid

Tessa is the founder and director of Tia International Aid, a youth-led non-profit organisation that aims to improve the futures of disadvantaged children in Bolivia by working directly with local organisations and community groups to create sustainable and lasting change. Working from a model of empowerment and participation, Tia International Aid focuses on collaborating with the community, working alongside centres and organisations that assist disadvantaged children and youth. Read Tessa’s bio.

Warren Roberts: The Youth Awareness Resource Network (YARN)

Warren is the founder of the Youth Awareness Resource Network (YARN), a proactive group of people who want to discuss and take action on Indigenous Australian issues relating to social justice. YARN provides a forum that aims to build relationships with the leaders of tomorrow, operating in multiple university campuses across Australia. Its goal is to build stronger links between Indigenous Australians and the rest of the country through storytelling. Read Warren’s bio.