Amid the isolation of COVID-19, connecting young people through “real conversations” has never been more crucial, according to Talking Youth founder Fiona Luca. Luke Voogt speaks to Fiona and two speakers featuring in her upcoming Talking Youth Sees You forum, who hope their journeys can inspire Geelong’s young people.
After 10 years teaching science and maths in Melbourne’s western suburbs Ruth Hibburt moved down to Geelong just after her divorce, and began a seven-year journey of personal development.
“I rebuilt who I was,” she says.
“I was a victim of own my mindset and thinking.
“I invested more $100,000 in my own education and met with the best mentors and life coaches from around the world.”
Now happily-married with two boys in Clifton Springs, the author, education consultant and numeracy specialist has a few secrets to pass onto local teens.
“I won’t teach anything I haven’t done myself,” she says.
“I’ve worked with more than 3000 students in and out of schools and I’ve studied the patterns for success.
“I’ve followed students’ journeys from primary school to year 12, and beyond.”
In 2019, her observations led to her publishing her book Do make mistakes: the secrets to success that every teen must know.
“Everything I do, comes down to my five secrets of success,” she says.
Ruth hopes to share these secrets of empowerment alongside other speakers in the first-ever Talking Youth Sees You forum on September 12.
Initially intended as Talking Youth’s first live forum, the free event has migrated online amid Victoria’s latest COVID-19 outbreak.
“One of the secrets is self-belief,” Ruth says.
“Now more than ever, young people need to learn how to believe in themselves even when people around them don’t.”
Ruth wants to encourage young people to examine their values and embrace a “growth mindset”.
“There’s too many teenagers who have a fixed mindset,” she explains.
“Everyone has limiting beliefs that are holding them back.
“My purpose is for every single young person to believe they deserve to be successful and know that there are things they can do to empower themselves.
“If a young person has the belief that they are not good enough, they are going to make decisions based on that.”
She recounts the journey of year 12 student with “crippling anxiety”, who did just that.
“He couldn’t even step foot in school without having a panic attack,” she says.
“He was about to drop out and give up on VCE. He was choosing to be around people that bullied him and put him down.
“He would spend all night on computer games and he was not communicating with parents and friends that were a positive influence.
“He had a belief that he was stupid.”
But, as an education consultant, Ruth helped the boy recognise the signs in his body before a panic attack, and see his potential and intelligence.
“People have said to me that there’s a spring in his step again,” she says.
“His parents have just been saying how he’s been smiling all week for the last few weeks. He’s organised and he’s got a plan of how he’s going to achieve his ATAR goal.
“He’s not communicating with the people that were bullying him and spending less time on games.”
To Ruth, crisis is an opportunity for people to change how they think and respond to their environment.
Amid a global pandemic, that message has never been more crucial, she says.
“Right now there’s a lot of people feeling really down and in crisis,” she says.
The creator of the Talking Youth podcast, Fiona Luca, agrees wholeheartedly.
“This is a good opportunity for young people to alter their perspective or to access some tools to support them through this relentless time,” Fiona says.
Like Ruth, Fiona has found opportunity in crisis while moving the forum online amid Victoria’s latest lockdown – being able to reach more youths.
“I think it’s a big opportunity,” she says,
“It can extend it Victoria-wide, Australia-wide and beyond.”
The event delves into mind management, self-image and movement with six different speakers.
Lewis Taranto and Kyle Jdali, who founded mental health service Atman when they were 17, will share their stories and speak about the taboo topics that “are scary to address”.
“They are determined to change mental health systems in a way that previous generations have been unable to do,” Fiona says.
“They also like dyeing their hair pink and shaving their eyebrows for charity.”
Choreographer and movement coach Zoee Marsh will also appear in the online forum.
“She does incredible things in the movement space,” Fiona says.
“It was important for me to have a really diverse range of holistic mentors who were dedicated to supporting young people.”
And as many Australians turn to the bottle during lockdown and isolation, fellow speaker and Sober Mates founder Sammy Wilson hopes her journey can inspire the “sober curious”.
The 27-year-old data analyst initially decided to have a break from alcohol in February 2020, just five weeks before Australia went into its first lockdown.
She had long thought about cutting alcohol out of her life, but a mate’s hen’s party proved the final catalyst.
“Because I was organising it, I didn’t drink until 4pm and tried to catch up – which never works out well,” she says.
The messy night ended in her continuing an “unhealthy pattern” of “drunkenly calling up the ex and dragging them over”.
“I had the hangover from hell – it was a four-day hangover – I thought, ‘why am I doing this to myself?’
“I wanted to work out how everybody else drank and didn’t seem to have a problem – I thought it was just me – but then I realised, it was just something we don’t talk about.”
A few months in, she founded her “passion project” Sober Mates, an online platform exploring the effects of alcohol and providing resources for the “sober curious” or those just looking to cut down.
“There was nothing that really spoke young people,” she says.
“In our culture we are so OK about people drinking.
“There’s this stigma around, ‘you’ll be boring and not social at all’. But true friends realise you’re the same person.”
Eighteen months later, Sammy remains sober and has ditched ‘hangxiety’ – the nasty cocktail of chemical imbalances in the brain resulting in anxiety during hangovers.
“After a few months, I was waking up happier than ever and I thought, ‘I want to wake up like this all the time’,” she says.
“I still have big nights out with my girlfriends [sobre], but I’m more engaging and I have deeper connections with people.
“I know what I’ve said and done, I know I’ve had a good time and I love being able to drive home at the end of the night.”
But even in the most severe of lockdowns, bottle shops remain open as “essential services”, presenting a temptation for some.
“I think that’s been quite the dangerous thing during lockdown,” Sammy says.
For others, drinking alone without friends or bartender to tap them on the shoulder can be equally dangerous, she says.
“It’s been an easy coping mechanism for Australians for some time.
“I know a lot of people drinking to numb their feelings and as a means to cope, but using a substance isn’t going to change your circumstances.”
Sammy hopes to encourage local young people to have a closer look at their “relationship with alcohol” during Talking Youth’s online forum.
“What I want to get out of session is to give people the resources to have these conversations with their mates and parents,” she says.
“Talking Youth is an incredible platform for young people to have, so I’m really happy to tell my story.”
Details: talkingyouth.com.au
