Young Victorian of the Year Speech by Thom Woodroofe

On 1st July 2009 the Executive Director of Left Right Thom Woodroofe was named the 2009 Young Victorian of the Year for his work in encouraging youth participation across the community.

In accepting the award, Thom said he was honoured and humbled by the title and looked forward to encouraging other young people to volunteer their time in ways they feel they can make a difference.

He also said he hoped to change the way many groups engage with young people describing a culture of tokenism in many organisations approaches to youth participation which is more about a CSR bottom line than about encouraging and promoting the voices and ideas of young people, which many young people are often unknowingly seduced by.

Left Right is Australia's first independent and non-partisan think-tank of young minds. Our mission is to involve young people in public policy. Our vision is for a society that seeks and embraces the ideas of young people.

For more information please visit http://www.leftright.org.au

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Thom
• Woodroofe
• Left
• Right
• Think-Tank
• Young
• Victorian
• of
• the
• Year
• Victoria
• Day
• ABC
• Youth
• Participation
• Engagement
• People