Over the past 97 days, the AYCC has been running Meet Your Member – a campaign to connect young people with every single politician in the country. There’s just 3 days to go until the campaign wraps up, and it’s been made possible by some of the most inspiring, passionate young people in the country. Young people like Linsey, AYCC Canberra Co-ordinator.
The morning of our meeting with Andrew Leigh (Federal Member for Fraser) was cold. Not in the oh-it’s-winter-time-to-pull-out-some-cute-scarfs-and-beanies way, but in the billowing, bone cold way that makes you want to curl up in bed and fend off the outside world.
It had been a busy couple of weeks. Just over a week before, our team had held a hugely successful community outreach event CelebrACTion and two days before we’d gathered en masse with the Canberra community to walk across Commonwealth Bridge and “Say Yes” to real action on climate change. Because of the intensity of the preceding two weeks, we hadn’t been able to put much energy into organising the meeting.
I arrived at the lawns of Parliament House with two other people and a bitter wind had started to gain momentum. We stood around and jumped up and down for a few minutes wondering if anyone would turn up. Yet after five minutes people started arriving. They came from all directions until we had 24 young people representing a number of local high schools, two universities and a number of community environmental groups. Each person faced up in the freezing cold because they wanted to tell Andrew Leigh how important it is to our future that the government’s price on pollution is strong, fair and binding.
I have been a co-coordinator of the ACT state AYCC team for 18 months and in that time I have never ceased to be blown away by the enthusiasm and passion of the young people who volunteer with our group. The true magic is that someone who arrives to volunteer quickly becomes a close friend. The shared goals, ideals and laughter crucially underpin the success of all our endeavours and the latest campaign Meet Your Member was no exception to this.
In the last four months we have had hundreds of conversations with people from all walks of life. We’ve talked to school students, parents, professionals, businesspeople, retirees and our Federal politicians. Locally, AYCC has raised its profile in the Canberra community. Nationally, AYCC has sent the message that young people are not only the largest stakeholders in the issue of climate change, but we’re informed and we’re organised.
Most importantly however, we have a vision of a safe future; a prosperous future. We refuse to be limited by scaremongers and naysayers because we know that the clean renewable technologies of tomorrow are ready today. We know that with education people start to understand and moderate their impact on the earth. We know that with ingenuity and creativity, we can change society. Look at what the technological revolution has done for society in the last 30 years?
After all, as Einstein said: “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”
Meet Your Member has just 3 days to go, so we’ve brought 100 young Australians to Canberra to finish the campaign in style! To follow all the action, connect with us on Facebook and Twitter.
