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