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	myra9779
	Myra Ng


Title and Organization:		Policy Officer, Open Family Australia
Gender and Age:		Female, 29
Location:		Melbourne, Victoria
Country of Residence:		Australia
Citizenships:		Singapore
Languages:		English



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About Me

I'm 22 and live in Melbourne, Australia. I was born in Singapore, but moved to Australia when I was 16 for university, and my family has since relocated as well.

Being away from home and in a different country as a teenager inculcated in me a compassion for young people who feel alienated and isolated from the mainstream, and this has fed my interest to work for other young people.

I currently work at Open Family Australia, an organisation that works with street children, as the Policy Officer. Open Family has bases in 3 states and territories in Australia - Victoria, New South Wales, and the Australian Capital Territory. We have about 30 street outreach workers who make contact with street children throughout the country. They are accessible to these children on a 24-hour basis, and assist in putting them in contact with resources and services they need, while providing ongoing support and availability.

My work involves developing a nationwide training program for Open Family Australia, in building the number of 'significant adult others' who can provide dislocated young people with support that is non-judgmental and recognises their strengths. It also involves writing long funding submissions, analysing data, and going to countless youth network meetings and forums (at which I am almost always the only young person present!)

This June I attended the Third Preparatory Committee on the United Nations Special Session on Children in New York. It was a great experience meeting other young people representing NGOs or their countries, especially when a group of us got together, put aside our differences and adopted a common stance on Youth Participation and actively lobbied government representatives and NGOs to support our position.

Since then, I have developed a keen interest in creating substantive opportunities for youth participation within Open Family Australia. Given the nature of the young people we work with - where homelessness, drug use, lack of education and unemployment pervade, I initially thought that creating a youth participation strategy would be extremely difficult.

I was proven wrong just recently when I got a group of 8 street children together to talk to Kirsten Hagon, the Australian Youth Delegate to the United Nations. Initially shy and a little reluctant, they were soon freely sharing their experiences of being on the street - police violence, drug use, lack of respect from the wider community, depression, suicide, low self-esteem and so forth. By the end of it all, they were all fired up and buzzing with confidence. The chance to speak to Kirsten and to unite and organise as a group amid their extremely chaotic lifestyles made all the difference.

All fired up myself, I will be developing further opportunities for them in the near future. I feel happy to be able to facilitate something that might make a real difference in their lives, as I know that the opportunities I have had to truly participate and have a say have made all the difference.

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