Kiyanna’s stepping stones
“It’s amazing to think that 12 of us can do these awesome things,” says 16-year-old Kiyanna Mischkulnig from Yarra Valley Grammar. “We organised 5 bands and about 150 people came. Everyone just danced.”
Kiyanna became a member of the Maroondah Youth Advisory Group (YAG) that forms her local FReeZA committee just this year. The FReeZA program, which is funded by the Office for Youth, supports committees of young people – like the one Kiyanna belongs to – to organise and manage fully-supervised drug and alcohol-free live music gigs and cultural events for young people across Victoria. The Maroondah committee is currently planning their Halloween event where 500 young people and five live bands are expected to party hard.
“I’d been to a couple of FReeZA gigs and loved them. The youth workers from EV’s Youth Centre in Croydon, where the meetings and events are held, suggested I join the group. There have been so many good things about joining,” she says.
Kiyanna has been to group training sessions run by FReeZA where she’s learned how to organise and run an event; engineer sound and lighting; deal with the media; and most exciting for Kiyanna, eased her out of her cocoon with the help of the group’s communication training.
“I used to be shy and wouldn’t say anything in a group where I didn’t know people,” she says. “The communication training taught me how to be assertive without sounding aggro…which I’d always been afraid of. This year has been a real turning point for me.”
“Helping run the gigs are real a buzz too,” she adds. “We all rotate jobs on the night – collecting money at the door, doing the lights, working in the cafe – I feel like I’ve learned heaps and its made me so much more confident.”
Kiyanna’s dream is to become a doctor and do aid work overseas; she says her experience at Maroondah YAG has helped her believe she can do it.
“I love music and I’m really into photography, I want to keep being involved in both those things…even when I’m a doctor.”
Read more about the FReeZA Program
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