MEL: I feel like,
as a young person,
I have a voice when
I'm talking to people
that are the same age as me.
JAMIE: Older people don't
really give young people
a chance because we don't
have life experience
or whatever they
like to call it.
BRYCE: On a political
scale, you're
not going to really
have much of a voice
because you're just this
teenager who goes to a TAFE.
JAMIE: I feel like
I'm more heard
if I'm talking about
something that I know well
because no one's going to really
listen to you if you don't know
all the facts.
KARMEN: I don't
believe I have a voice.
I believe it's
because we're still
deciding on what
we want in life.
MEL: I feel like I've been
heard when I'm on a conversation
that I'm actually passionate
about because it doesn't really
matter if you want
to hear me or not.
You will.
BRYCE: So if I were to
walk into a local council
actually on a topic that I'm
interested in, whether it
be gay rights, gun
rights, whatever you want,
and be heard, I think it'd
be absolutely fantastic.
The challenge for
me getting heard
is just finding the best
place to actually say something.
Because you get all these people
on social media, like Facebook,
going on these massive rants
in their status, of blah,
blah, blah.
And they might have
some really good points.
But no one's going to see it.
Their friends are
going to see it,
and they'll go,
oh, that's awesome.
And then the next
minute, they'll
forget what they've said.
They'll forget that's
ever even happened.
[CHANTING]
In a society where
everything's meant to be equal,
you get so many things
that aren't equal,
that are really obvious but
everyone just skips over
and hides, such as
marriage equality.
People want to get married.
They can't because they're gay.
OLIVIA: Something we
all thought, why not?
Why isn't it legal?
It's just something
that doesn't really
make sense to not legalise.
It's not going to affect anyone
who doesn't believe in it,
only the people who do.
[MUSIC - "DON'T
DREAM IT'S OVER"]
OLIVIA: The very
first thing we did
was going to the
marriage equality rally.
And we interviewed
different people there
that looked really
fun to interview.
And we interviewed
Ali Hogg, which
is kind of the face of
Melbourne's equal rights.
So she had a lot
to offer for us.
[CHANTING]
BRYCE: Some of the things we
learn about marriage equality
when we're trying
to tackle it is
it's a very, very
big global issue.
That as much as you can
try and have a say on it,
it really kind
of-- The voice dies
in the crowd that are
for or against it.
[CHANTING]
BRYCE: We've talked to a person
from the Safe Schools Coalition,
Joel, about Safe Schools,
which is more of a local issue
tackling homophobia and
transphobia within schools.
MEL: I think we changed our
goal from marriage equality
down to safe schools because it
was kind of an easier target.
And there's more
that we could do
on a local level,
rather than global.
BRYCE: If you get people who
are homosexual or transgender
in schools accepted, you
start getting generations,
as they come through
the education system,
they accept this idea of yes,
everyone is normal like that.
That could lead on to
when they're older,
they're thinking about marriage.
They go, well, I don't care if
a guy and a guy get married.
That's cool, because
in school, there
was gays who walked
around all the time
and I didn't give a crap.
KARMEN: One of the
things our group did
was get the other VCAL class
to complete a survey on what
their views are.
When we got the results
from the surveys,
we saw that a lot of the
students supported it.
JAMIE: As part of
joining Safe Schools,
we've put up all these posters
to get our message and out
point across to everyone
who looks at them
and sees them in the hallways.
BRYCE: And we've met with
our centre manager, Chris,
about persuading him to
sign up to the Safe Schools,
which we successfully did.
And he's in the process of
signing it up more formally
with the rest of
the school body.
We felt good because he was
actually listening to us.
He took the time out of his day
to sit down and listen to us.
JAMIE: It's
surprising how easy it
is to make a change, like
signing up to Safe Schools.
BRYCE: And so getting
heard, as a young person,
it's hard to do.
But when it happens, a lot of
good things can come out of it.
And you feel really
good about yourself.
OLIVIA: I kind of overcame--
I'm always kind of shy.
I don't like talking
to people I don't know.
So we kind of
swapped roles a bit.
And Bryce did more
of the interviewing
because he's not very shy.
BRYCE: A challenge
with group work
is really distributing
the work evenly.
JAMIE: I think
next time, we would
start with the
local issue, instead
of starting with
something so big.
MEL: I think my best
advice would just
be to stay open minded
about what responses
you get back from people that
you might be interviewing,
because that will help
you to better come up
with new ideas for your topic
or what you could do about it.
KARMEN: If we could do
some things different
it would probably be seeing more
of each other in our own time.
BRYCE: This project
can help because if you
get your voice out
there and heard,
it really just clicks
in your mind of hey,
even though I'm doing
VCAL, I can still be heard.
I can still make a difference.
I can still do things in
life, and people are not
going to look at
me as a dumb ass.
MEL: I think the best
part of this project
was just being able
to do something,
even if it is as small
as just in the school,
and to actually be
heard by someone.
