Youth Humanitarian Festival 2017

Be empowered this September, as the Youth Humanitarian Festival sets out to engage young people in Melbourne to make a positive social change in the world and in their community.

Established in 2014, YHF is a student-run event that aims to bring together like-minded people to expand their understanding on social and humanitarian issues. The event will feature inspiring speakers and entertaining workshops and all proceeds will be donated to social impact organisations.

Some of these events include:

• ‘Make Beaded Jewellery from Recycled Materials’: Come and meet Saida, who will share her stories in refugee camps and teach you how to make beautiful jewellery out of recycled magazines.
• ‘First steps towards a zero waste household’: Learn from Dr. Sam Shokravi about sustainability and how you can embark on a zero-waste lifestyle.
• ‘Old skool hip hop’: Learn some groovy hip-hop moves and jam it out with Liz, who followed her love for dance since 7 and is eager to share her passion with others.
• ‘How to grow your own herbs’: Meet Stewart Detez and learn a few tips and tricks to grow plants from scratch in your own home.
• ‘Igniting your creativity – ideating for change’: Find out you can use fun ideation techniques to creatively tackle some of societies’ toughest problems.
• ‘Authentic Pakistani cooking with Alia’: Alia, co-founder of SisterWorks, is here to teach you how to make delicious samosas so you can impress your family and friends with your yummy cooking.
• ‘Bringing the light: the Seven Women documentary’: this workshop will feature an engaging documentary about Seven Women, a social enterprise that changed the lives of thousands of women in Nepal through skills training, literacy and income generation.

Although the speakers list has yet to be finalised, previous speakers at the festival have included big names like renowned human rights and refugee lawyer Julian Burnside and David Begbie, Founder of the Crossroads foundation. With names like these, you can be sure this year’s speakers will be worth seeing.

The event will take place on the morning of Saturday, September 9 at Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn Campus. Tickets range from $10-15 and will soon be available for purchase at the YHF website.