About a year ago, 17-year-old Rachael Davies, of Epping, decided to act on her pent-up frustration about the plight of asylum seekers and refugees.
So the year 11 St Monica’s College student joined Multicultural Youth Advocacy Network’s Victorian arm, a policy and advocacy lobby group operating under the auspices of the Centre for Multicultural Youth.
“It wasn’t just the things in the news that were upsetting me but years of bottled-up anger about their treatment in Australia,” she said.
She’s since been invited to youth conferences and recently to a youth leadership program organised by the United States embassy.
Ms Davies will head to Lake Tahoe in California later this month for a training camp to kick-off the 21-day program with a group of 18 secondary students from Australia and New Zealand, with US counterparts.
From there, it’s on to Portland, Oregon, Seattle and Washington DC to promote mutual understanding among the three participating nations, to foster relationships among young people from different ethnic and religious backgrounds, and create networks of future leaders.
The program centres on community service, civic education and youth leadership development.
St Monica’s College principal Brian Hanley said Ms Davies had already shown she was an exceptional student, willing to take on extra challenges.
She hopes to study development or international relations in developing countries.
