12th July 2017

Young people doing crazy good

Project Scope

We all benefit when young people contribute to civic life. Crazy Ideas College (CIC) is a program that supports young people to develop and introduce crazy good ideas for improving life in their communities. Over the course of five weeks young people learn about community issues, create ideas and pitch them to local leaders and decision makers. CIC has a partnership with one of Australia’s leading online engagement platforms – OurSay – and this enables teams to build support for their ideas and gather feedback on how they might improve their concept.

Over the last few years we’ve worked with over 1000 young people from a number of communities in Victoria and Queensland. Participants have demonstrated their brilliance at developing novel ideas and generating support for their concepts. Last year young people from Southern Grampians Shire secured around 2000 votes from community members for their ideas. 

CIC build the skills and agency of young people so that they are confident in their ability to make change happen. Many of the ideas have come to fruition as CIC makes sure the process is linked to local priorities and decision making processes. A number of schools have used CIC as a means to engage their students in coming up with school improvement projects.

Transforming schools and communities