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Youth Week 2008 Virtual Forum

"Shout. Share. Live. Unite."

As part of the Youth Week 2008 celebrations, a group of technology-savvy young people from across Queensland have used virtual reality technology to speak out about issues affecting their community and young people in general.

On 1 April 2008, Youth Minister Lindy Nelson-Carr became the first Queensland Government Minister to hold a virtual forum with young people in the virtual world of Second Life.

As Second Life visitors must be 18 years and over, 6 young people people aged 18 to 25 from youth, Indigenous and disability sectors in Emerald, Cairns, Toowoomba and Brisbane took part in the event.

After each participant created their own avatar, a digital representation to match their personality, they joined Ms Nelson-Carr - or Lindy Connelly as she is know online - on Second Life's Queensland Island to discuss issues important to them. (See picture above)

Youth Week 2008 Virtual Forum video:

Topics raised at the forum included:

• Youth Week events
• homelessness
• alcohol use among young people
• Government initiatives for preventing alcohol and drug abuse
• encouraging positive behaviours in young people

"The Queensland Government is committed to facilitating opportunities for young people to contribute to government decision making and to have their say - and this is a new and exciting way to achieve that"

Youth Week 2008 Forum discussions

One of the conversations for the Youth Week 2008 Virtual Forum was how communities are celebrating Youth Week this year. Forum participants also raised issues such as issues such as binge-drinking and homlessness to discuss how this affects their communities and how to overcome these challenges.

Forum discussions

The following responses are excerpts from the Youth Week 2008 Virtual Forum discussions:

• On Youth Week......"In Toowoomba there are two gigs on Saturday. :) A few highschool kids have done most of the work for one of them, and organised heaps of stuff (bbq, badge-making, bands). So its looking pretty cool."
  
  
• On drugs and alcohol......"You cannot stop it from happening [drugs and alcohol], young people naturally experiment, however if you inform them you equip them with the tools to make informed decisions"
  
  
• On homelessness......"better support for homeless youth, as a previously homeless youth myself, I feel that there should be more support options and accomodation for these youth"
  
  
• On youth issues......"Basically its about tackling problems, BEFORE they become real problems"
  
  
• On Youth Week......"I believe that youth week is a start, and the government is making the public more aware of the issues...."
  
  
• The Minister on Second Life......"I'd like to thank you all for your commitment and enthusiasm. I'd also like to congratulate you all for doing such a great job of dealing with this amazing technology."
  
  

Online competition

Youth Week 2008