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The Redcliffe Area Youth Space (aka RAYS or just "the Youth Space") is a not-for-profit community organisation. We're a dynamic, inclusive, friendly, slightly crazy youth service that works with marginalised, disadvantaged and at risk young people aged 10 to 24.

LATEST NEWS!

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YOUTH SPACE WINS STATE AWARD!

Moreton Bay Regional Council just let us know that the Youth Space won the Queensland State Young Legends Award! We won the regional, which we've done for the last few years, but never won it at the state level. So... YAY! That's pretty cool. It's a huge thing to us because it's about Youth Workers and young people working together to make a community a better place to be for everyone.

Huge thanks to all of the young people who made it possible with their incredible dedication and work. We luvs ya all!

YOUTH SPACE ON THE NEWS!

Channel 9 has given us permission to put the news story that featured the Youth Space on our various websites... so it's now live on our YouTube and our facebook sites. It was up here on our official website but we sort of got sick of it, so now it's gone. If you still want to see it, check out our facebook or YouTube.

The Youth Space would like to thank Channel 9 News/WIN Television, Big Splash Media, Westfield, Stockland and Moreton Bay Regional Council for the opportunity to showcase one of our programs. We've already received a ridiculous number of phone calls, facebook posts and e-mails about the news broadcast which is great, we guess! This is all very strange for us and we're certainly not used to all the attention! We've very humbled by it all and appreciate of everyone's support and kind words!

Our team works very hard to deliver programs that will support young people and the communities we work in. The staff of the Youth Space actually volunteer their time to do North Lakes every Thursday and to do our Friday night outreach in Redcliffe! Unfortunately there's rarely ever enough money around, so when we can, and when a community is in serious need, we do what we can to help out.

So what's up next for us? Check our Events List just to the right of this page for upcoming events. You'll see a big skate comp at Bribie Island this weekend, and of course the North Lakes Project every Thursday night... we also continue to run a variety of award winning programs throughout the week - check out the "Our Programs" page of the website if you would like to know more. The link is on the left hand side of the page.

YOUTH SPACE MAKES THE FRONT PAGE!

Young people get a bad wrap, and that annoys us. A lot. Because so often they are depicted as being the cause of violence in the community or the cause of anti-social behaviours when that's rarer than people think or want to believe.

Like us, they just want to be safe and violence and personal safety are two of the biggest things that cause them concern.

We don't know why young people are thought of so poorly, but we assume it is because as young people, they are testing boundaries and exploring life and sometimes getting into trouble. Maybe it's because sometimes they react poorly to situations they don't understand because they don't have the ability, yet, to really predict the consequences of their actions? The simple fact is, those that cause trouble are far far fewer than those who don't, and every young person we work with is a miracle waiting to happen. We see them come in, troubled, with heaps of complex issues going on in their lives, and then we watch them turn their lives around.

The Redcliffe Area Youth Space is funded to work with marginalised young people and young people who have gone astray. Young people who do drugs, indulge in alcohol, have been sexually assaulted, have been harmed in some way. Our work focuses on all young people, those considered disadvantaged and those considered mainstream because all young people are at risk, but every young person, when given the chance and encouragement to do something great, never ceases to amaze us. Some take a little more nurturing than others, but without exception everyone of them sorts their stuff out - often against almost insurmountable odds.

We made it onto the front page of the paper today to bring a bit of a reality check to our community, and to bring attention to violence being perpetrated AGAINST young people by adults of a Friday night. There aren't gangs of young people wandering the streets looking for trouble, there are groups of young people trying to band together for protection who more often than not run from violence than cause it because they're being targetted by opportunistic adults out to cause trouble.

Young people being attacked by adults of a Friday and Saturday night is a real and frightening issue, it's an escalating issue, it's something we're trying hard to stop by volunteering our time to be in the hot spot areas of a Friday night into the early hours of Saturday morning.

If you're interested in reading the article, check out the link here: http://redcliffe-and-bayside-herald.whereilive.com.au/news/story/youth-are-easy-targets/

MORE AWARD CRAZINESS!

Last month we told you we'd been nominated for two awards, and earlier this month (August) we got word we'd won both awards - which is great! We're very flattered and very humbled by it all. So what did we win?

For the third year (we think, we've lost count) in a row the Youth Space was awarded the "Young Legends" award. This award is all about initiatives that support young people to make their local area a better place to live. The Youth Space does everything it can to support and inspire young people to make a positive difference in the world, and this award was given to us to acknowledge the remarkable, positive impact, local young people have had on Redcliffe over the last year. We believe in something called "service focused effort" which is all about creating empathy and understanding in young people, and teaching them the joy and satisfaction of giving to others. Some of the things we were given the award for include young people building a garden for the community of Redcliffe and the Cerebral Palsy League of Queensland, young people writing and creating a childrens book for pre-schoolers that teaches kids the importance of looking after our environment, young people assessing and creating resources for businesses that will help them "green" up and protect the future of the Peninsula... and more. You might have noticed we've used the words "young people" a heap of times in this paragraph, and that's because they did ALL the work. All we did was give them encouragement and guidance and find the money to make it happen. So, if you're an adult reading this who now and again thinks young people are just trouble-makers, me encourage you to think again. We're immensley proud of the young people we work with, and we're not talking about over-achievers here, we're talking about young people who are facing multiple complex challenges in life including serious mental health conditions, drug and alcohol addictions, who are survivors of sexual assault, who are homeless... these are the guys giving their all for their community! That's inspirational! We're blown away every day by the potential we see around us.

The second award is the first time we've ever won the "Partnerships" award, which is all about business, local government and community coming together to benefit a particular area that is experiencing serious social issues. The award was for the North Lakes Project we run every Thursday night at Westfield. The project was designed by our Manager, who heads a team of about eight people who give up their Thursday nights week after week to support the community of North Lakes. The project creates a safe, entertaining, social space for young people at the Westfield shopping centre and includes an outreach component where Youth Workers patrol the shopping centre and its surrounding areas to keep everyone safe and to help young people out if they're in distress. The Youth Space runs the program with the incredible help of Contact Inc (a Youth Arts Org from Brisbane) and Wade Schaare, an amazing artist who works with us on heaps of different projects! We also get a lot of help from the Westfield Security Guards, Westfield Management and the Queensland Police Service who are all amazing! The project is funded by Moreton Bay Regional Council and the Stockland Development Group and is heavily supported by Westfield North Lakes.

The successes we've enjoyed over the years are due to the help of a lot of people. We firmly believe in collaboration at the Youth Space. So, we'd quickly like to make a shout out to a few people who have helped us to win these awards thanks to their tireless, selfless support:
- Moreton Bay Regional Council... in particular Councillors Rae Frawley, James Houghton and Julie Greer and Council Officers Naomi Rayward and Marck McCormack;
- Federal Member for Petrie, Yvette D'Ath;
- State Member for Redcliffe, Lillian van Litsenburg;
- The State Government's Department of Employment, Economic Development and Innovation, in particular the Honourable Andrew Fraser;
- The Stockland Development Group, in particular Ricky Stainkey;
- Westfield North Lakes and the Westfield National Office, in particular Mark Gleeson, Darin Sneesby and Fiona Hanson;
- Cascade Place and the Cerebral Palsy League of Queensland;
- Constable Todd Armstrong and Sergeant Richard Clark of the Redcliffe Police;
- Worklinks Incorporated and the Redcliffe Community Association, in particular Jan Robinson, Nette Griggs, Lynn Shannon, Dee Mitchell and Stephanie Blunt;
- TyrePower Redcliffe;
- Ashley Printers;
- Connections Catering;
- Office National.

Of course, none of this would be possible without the remarkable dedication of our staff team and volunteers: Jarryd, Roz, Ben, Amylee, Amy, Mitch, David, Seona, Aaron, Janice, Allen, Kit and Matt.

So, that's it! That's another update from us.

And now for a little word from our sponsors!

Check out these amazing businesses and organisations below.
They help us out whenever they can and without them
we wouldn't be able to do the good work we do.

Redcliffe Glass