Determined Uluru Youth galvanise Voice campaign game plan
The Uluru Youth Ambassadors have been drawn from throughout the country and are all fierce advocates of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, starting with a First Nations Voice. (Image credit: The Uluru Dialogue)
A core group of determined young First Nations campaigners has spent the weekend strategising their push towards securing a ‘Yes” result for the upcoming referendum on a proposed Voice to Parliament.
Following an historic three-day gathering at Meanjin, Brisbane, the Uluru Youth Dialogue – a campaign working under the leadership and guidance of the Uluru Dialogue since 2019 – has officially launched its Uluru Youth Dialogue Ambassadors.
The Ambassadors will work alongside and support Uluru Youth Dialogue Co-Chairs, Cobble Cobble woman Allira Davis and Wiradjuri woman Bridget Cama.
Uluru Youth Dialogue Co-Chair Bridget Cama during the strategy meeting in Brisbane. (Image credit: The Uluru Dialogue)
The Youth Dialogue also used the gathering to announce the ‘Uluru Youth Dialogue Declaration’, an inspiring call-to-action setting the tone of their ambitions for their campaign across its final months.
The young campaigners are drawn from throughout the country and are all fierce advocates of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, starting with a First Nations Voice.
"The Uluru Youth Dialogue Declaration is a clear statement of the aspirations of First Nations young people to take our rightful place in history,” Co-Chair Ms Cama said.
"The Declaration will guide our Youth Ambassadors, helping them to realign and focus for the several months until the referendum. It is going to be intense, but we are energised and ready for the challenge.
"It’s a call from First Nations youth: Hear us. Know us. Walk with us.
"This is our future on the line; it is us who will benefit most from a ‘yes’ result, but we will be greatly impacted if the referendum doesn’t succeed. It’s about our futures and those of our kids and the generations after that.”
Uluru Youth Ambassadors Quentin Turner and Hazali D'Anna. (Image credit: The Uluru Dialogue)
Co-Chair Allira Davis said the energy levels of the Youth Dialogue group are high following the weekend gathering.
"We want the Australian public to know we are serious about this,” Ms Davis said. “This referendum is a once in many lifetimes opportunity and we have to seize this moment together as Australians.
"We are excited that our Uluru Youth Dialogue, as the leading and only youth-led campaign, will be at the forefront of this referendum working alongside the senior leaders of the Uluru Dialogue.
"This gathering has been momentous, before now it had been more than a year since we’d been able to come together to meet in one place.
“We are now armed with the skills, resources and information we need to speak to all Australians, and we hope they’ll hear us.
"It was great to have our senior leaders here to brief us and be able to learn from them.
The Uluṟu Statement from the Heart is an invitation that was issued to all Australians on 26 May 2017 to walk with us, First Nations, for a better future.
The Statement calls for real and lasting structural change to reshape the relationship between First Peoples and all other Australians. It lays a path forward to improved outcomes for First Nations communities through self-determination, for structural reform to give First Nations Peoples a greater say and authority over laws and decisions that affect them.
