Youth Voices for Climate and Country: Hope and Action from Southeast Sydney

Last Friday, more than 60 students from seven high schools across Southeast Sydney came together for the Youth Week Climate and Biodiversity Forum 2025 — a day that was less about talking and more about leading.

Hosted by Sutherland Shire Council, the forum was a celebration of youth leadership and intergenerational responsibility. As facilitator for the day, I had the privilege of guiding the students through a timeline-based icebreaker that grounded our day in 60,000 years of Aboriginal custodianship, and then into what became the heart of the event — negotiation and development of a Youth Statement on the Climate Crisis.

These young people didn’t hold back.

They wrote from the heart, with clarity, urgency, and wisdom beyond their years. Here’s an excerpt from what they created together:

“We as young people care about the changes that need making now, because they will impact our future and our generations to come... This is urgent. We must act now because it’s the last chance before the consequences are irreversible.”

The final statement calls for ecosystem restoration, economic stability, and climate justice. It reminds us that when ecosystems thrive, humans thrive — and when they collapse, so do our societies.

The students came from diverse schools — Cronulla High, De La Salle Catholic College, Endeavour Sports High, Lucas Heights Community School, Port Hacking High, St George Girls High, and Sylvania High — yet they united around a shared vision for a better future. One with clean air, clean water, and a deeper connection to Country and each other.

Days like this affirm why I do what I do. This is Lyrebird Dreaming in action: empowering people — especially young people — to find their voice and act with purpose.

Watch this space after the federal election, when these students, motivated and organised, will bring their statement to Canberra — and deliver it directly to whoever is elected to lead our nation.

Because the future belongs to them. And they’re ready for it.