Three things you already have that can change the world

all of us want to change something about

the world

what is it that you wish was different

maybe you want consent education in your

high school

maybe you want to save the coral reefs

from bleaching

end homelessness cure disease

whatever the change it is that you want

to make

today in roughly eight minutes

i’m going to tell you how to start

making that happen

now you might say

come on sophie last year was literally

the darkest timeline

and you’d be right

and it can get pretty overwhelming

sometimes but if we let that anxiety and

collective paralysis take hold it’s not

going to make us feel any better and

it’s not going to fix our world but

sophie i hear you say

i’m just a young person even if i wanted

to do something about the whole global

warming rise of extremism pandemic thing

i couldn’t

and sure

some of you can’t vote

or drive

you probably still have to go to school

and university every day you’re likely

not the ceo of an organization or the

heir to a billion dollar fortune

well i have good news for you anyway

turns out you already have everything

you need

most of the big problems in the world

the really big ones already have some

solutions unless you’re stephen hawking

several very very smart someones have

already put their heads together and

come up with a really really good

solution to that problem that big

challenge

they’re usually just not being

implemented

and the other thing about those big big

challenges is that while they can seem

huge there’s normally some level of

local solution

and you know who’s great at designing

and leading local solutions

locals

we just need to listen

i’ve been working for a few years with a

community in gijonjarou country

in halls creek

and in a town of 600

they had a group of 60 young people

wandering the streets every single night

a spate of youth crime that the media

compared to worse than a war zone

how do you even begin to tackle that

well

there’s this concept called justice

reinvestment

essentially it’s about taking all those

resources that we spend in reacting to

crime

and using them earlier to respond to the

underlying causes of offending which are

normally social

think of it like this if you’ve got a

really dangerous cliff

and there’s a whole lot of cars driving

off

do you buy an ambulance to cart bodies

away at the bottom or do you build a

fence at the top to stop cars going off

we know that prevention is better than

cure

so

using this concept of justice

reinvestment

the town of halls creek and ashira

started an 18-month long co-design with

11 different aboriginal communities to

hear directly from the communities

themselves about what they were

experiencing and what issues and

solutions they thought could work to

build a better future for their young

people

they started a program called oliver

together and the aboriginal youth

engagement night officers program in its

first two years of running has reduced

burglaries by 58

they’ve reduced stolen cars by 36

and stealing in general by 28

it’s huge results and it’s not your

typical response of more police or more

prisons

instead it took listening to the experts

who had built up this concept of justice

reinvestment over time and it took

listening to the community

who are the experts on their experience

to find the right solutions

so the very very first thing that i want

you to take home from this something

that you can do that you already know

how to do

is just to listen

when i was at university i was listening

to a friend of mine she’s from a refugee

background

and she had been going to the local pool

and trying to teach herself to swim she

wasn’t having very much progress because

she was kind of learning on her own and

she didn’t really know anyone else who

could swim very well and also like the

lessons were a bit too expensive to pay

for on a regular basis and she was doing

this because her and her partner used to

love going fishing off the rocks

and whenever they were fishing off the

rocks her partner would freak out a

little bit that a big wave was going to

come and knock either of them off and

that they might drown in the ocean

his fear wasn’t really unfounded

because 30 percent of drownings in

australia are from the migrant community

there was a real urgent need for change

especially in a place like perth where

we live on the river on the indian ocean

we have backyard barbecues by pools

and so i decided i wanted to do

something about it

i was part of a refugee rights

organization of uni students at the time

but we didn’t have our degrees yet

we didn’t have any money

and

none of us were even swim teachers

so what we gonna do

well we started the first organising

committee was pulled together from that

group of refugee rights students we

approached a sport science lecturer who

designed the first swimming curriculum

we were able to negotiate with the

university to use the pool for free for

the first couple of seasons

then we started to recruit swim teachers

from the sports science courses from the

faculties from the colleges from all of

the huge student pool that we had access

to

we spread the word to the community the

refugee and assam seeker community

through word of mouth social media and

existing charities

today

five years on

we’ve taught over 500 people how to swim

and engaged 150 volunteers

[Applause]

thanks guys

your community

has resources

and you can make use of them right now

all of us belong to a community

it might be where you live might be your

school your university your workplace

it could be that you’re part of a

sporting organisation or a cultural

group

whatever your community is

wherever they are whoever they are

i want you to consider how you can

harness the resources of that community

to build something transformative

last year

i helped change the law

to end imprisonment for unpaid fines

we were

locking up in western australia over a

thousand people a year

for being too poor to pay their fines

it was a dumb law it was a cruel law

frankly it was a fiscally irresponsible

law we spent a huge amount of money

on locking these people up

it cost our state a lot

it actually cost the families and those

individuals even more

it took a whole lot of collective change

and collective action

to finally see the law change

i coordinate a coalition of 25

non-for-profits

and we run a three-year campaign on this

we put our collective expertise together

and we built some alternatives that to

the current legislation so that there

was a different option we could be doing

something different with these people

we got our foot in the door with key

decision makers because they couldn’t

ignore all of us

we managed to

do math emails letter writing

petitioning we pulled together a leader

from every single political party

and fought for our case

a very brave family of a victim of these

laws mr her very brave family spoke out

time and time and time again they shared

their story in the media and before the

courts

another organization

just totally disrupted the system by

fundraising and paying off people’s

fines before they could get sent to

prison

the attorney general came on board and

the department of justice finally

drafted some legislation and then 10 000

people gathered together in perth for

the black lives matter rally and the

black lives matter rally leaders

reiterated the call to end imprisonment

for these people for unpaid fines

finally in june of 2020

the parliament of western australia made

the fine default reform bill become law

and today

we shouldn’t see any person sent to

prison simply for the crime of poverty

we are

infinitely more powerful

when we act together

and when we work together

we are smarter we are louder and we are

stronger than the sum of our individual

parts

we don’t have to play and you don’t have

to play every single part in a movement

for change you just have to play your

role

so if you’re a cook

invite people around to discuss the

issues around your table in a good

home-cooked meal

if you’re an artist design the posters

put them all over instagram

if you’re an expert write that policy

paper

if you’re a person of lived experience

share your story

and if you’re an organizer like me you

connect the people the places the dots

the ideas and you try to bring them

together for

change i want you guys to ask yourselves

who are the allies in your community who

could join you on your journey for

change

if you bring those people together to

act collectively

i promise you will see impact

i’m only 26 and but in my life and my

work so far

i’ve tried to start by listening and

learning about an issue

and then mobilizing the people around me

who also care

and the community resources that i can

access on the ground to start to create

change

probably my first experience of creating

change was being pushed in the parameter

protest by my mum

but

that seated for me the idea that i could

make a difference

and you can too

i want you to remember these three

things

the answers are there

just listen

your community

has resources

use

them we are far more powerful

when we work together

so act collectively

imagine the power if the 350 people in

this room right now

all went out and started acting together

on that one issue that you care about

imagine how the world could transform

so

what are you waiting for roll up your

sleeves

you already have

everything you need

thank you

[Applause]

[Music]

you