A small team of UWA students partnered with the Valuing Children Initiative recently through the McCusker Centre for Citizenship (the Centre), developing a project that addresses child poverty.
Ada Chu, Catherine Moloney, Jade Zhang, Max Stewart and Mpilo Maphanga took part in the Approaches to Wicked Problems unit, a uniquely hands-on summer intensive offered by the Centre.
With guidance from Sarah Quinton from the Valuing Children Initiative, the students undertook research to create the Dare to Dream campaign, which will integrate school engagement, public art exhibitions, direct engagement with members of parliament, and the End Child Poverty campaign.
Catherine, a Psychology student who is also studying a Minor in Active Citizenship, said the team’s campaign aimed to create legislative change.
“We created Dare to Dream to celebrate children’s dreams and raise public awareness about ‘opportunity poverty’, which means thousands of children in WA don’t receive the level of support that would help them to achieve their dreams.
“Dare to Dream will engage children in creating a visual representation of their dreams, which can be anything from a job to a house. They will create their artworks in schools, where they are provided age-appropriate education, the artworks are then sent digitally to relevant government ministers’ inboxes, before being displayed in a public exhibition,” she said.
“Understanding and ending child poverty is complex and often many people want to look away. The students took the complexity of that problem and developed a positive campaign that will speak to the heart of child poverty, childhood dreams,” said Sarah Quinton, Development Executive with the Valuing Children Initiative.
“We will now take this work and implement it into the End Child Poverty campaign across the nation, to raise awareness and create the political will for community and government to work towards ending child poverty in Australia.”
Alongside the Valuing Children Initiative were three other project sponsors who helped make Approaches to Wicked Problems possible this year - the Commissioner for Children and Young People WA, No Place for Poverty, and UWA’s Department of Social Work and Social Policy.
Michelle Scott, McCusker Chair in Citizenship and Director of the Centre, said that partnering with project sponsors for the unit created invaluable experiences for students and provided a unique opportunity to build connections between the university and challenges in our community.
“The students involved in Approaches to Wicked Problems gained a deeper understanding of the reality of child poverty in Australia, and how they can use their skills to drive positive change.
“The quality of the initiatives they developed shows that working with their project sponsors has helped them develop empathy and motivation to engage in active citizenship, while also providing these organisations with innovative ideas to achieve practical change.”