events

Youth Week began as a NSW Government initiative in 1989 and has since become a national event. It’s organised by young people, for young people, in communities across Australia.

National Youth Week is an opportunity for young people to share ideas, attend live events, have their voices heard on issues of concern to them, showcase their talents, celebrate their contribution to the community, take part in competitions, and have fun!

Voices of Influence Australia partnered with City of Sydney to host a Artivism workshop that facilitated a dialogue for young people to share their thoughts and ideas on current issues that directly impacted them

An emerging and growing body of research is demonstrating a sharp connection between climate disasters and gender-based violence. Our event will unpack how natural disasters increase stressors such as trauma and financial instability, impair existing social structures that normally may lessen violence, and increases mental and physical risk up to and including death.

Climate-related disasters have contributed to 60-80% of Pacific women’s experience of physical or sexual violence. Several health consequences such as risks of unintended pregnancies, unsafe abortions and STIs can also follow.

The purpose of this event will be to address how local communities in the Pacific can structure disaster relief programs to account for the unique challenges that women and girls face.

Technology has completely transformed the means by which human rights are both exercised and violated across the globe.

This panel provided an overview of what your legal rights are online, including recent amendments to online safety legislation and revenge porn. It also unpacked the interface of social media and far-right extremism. Lastly, how we can actively contribute to the conversation and foster safe and respectful spaces in the digital sphere.

The panel explores the relevance of social enterprise to social work practice and policy development. Social enterprise refers to a broad set of approaches that use business acumen to address social goals. A marginal activity in social work for a long time, recently social enterprise has been thrust into the spotlight in debates about the future of social policy and community services. It is important that social workers understand the meaning and implications of social enterprise if they are to apply it critically and reflectively in practice and participate in contemporary debates about its relevance in promoting individual and community empowerment.

The panel provides an overview of the meaning of social enterprise, outlines the reasons for the renewed focus on social enterprise and related concepts in social policy debates, particularly community development, and examines its underlying values.

There are three points we need to address between human rights and decolonisation.

Firstly, the essence of human rights and decolonisation are basically the same thing: the struggle for freedom against the abuse of power. The modern human rights framework as we know it was born in the crucible of decolonisation. It is a historical context we would do well to remember.

Secondly, human rights themselves have always been subject to efforts at colonisation: misappropriation and being manipulated for political ends. We need to recognise this for what it is, and in this sense the fight to decolonise human rights is a permanent one.

And thirdly, to be true to the character of human rights, we need to reconnect again with the struggles of ordinary people against abusive power.

Join our panellists as we discuss the intersections between the protection of human rights and colonialism.

To improve youth participation in the governance of human rights, conceptual and structural barriers need to be removed and groundwork that facilitates meaningful participation must be introduced.

A key barrier is conceptual: we need to change the way we think about young people. Far from seeing youth as a potential problem (or a bulge or threat) that needs solutions, youth must be reconceptualised as potential solutions to existing problems. This requires empowering them as human rights defenders rather than mere recipients. The second barrier is overcoming the shrinking democratic spaces open to young people.

The purpose of this panel, therefore, is twofold; reconteptualising young people as solutions to existing problems; and creating spaces and opportunities to facilitate young peoples participation in the democractic processes involving human rights and social justice.

The human rights lens provides a means to examine systemic issues and state responsibility.

Human rights principles that apply to patient care include both the right to the highest attainable standard of health, which covers both positive and negative guarantees in respect of health, as well as civil and political rights ranging from the patient’s right to be free from torture and inhumane treatment to liberty and security of person. They also focus attention on the right of socially excluded groups to be free from discrimination in the delivery of health care.

Critical rights relevant to providers include freedom of association and the enjoyment of decent work conditions. Some, but not all, of these human rights correspond to rights that have been articulated in “patients’ rights” charters.

Join our panellists as we explore the intersections between the promotion of health care and the right to health.

In this panel we will explore evolving efforts to integrate human rights into social work through a human rights lens in social work; human rights methods in social work framework for rights-based social work practice that is consistent with social work ethics and scholarship as well as with models used internationally by allied disciplines.

In addition to this, we will discuss the issue of participation; nondiscrimination; strengths-based perspective; micro/macro integration; capacity-building; community & interdisciplinary collaboration; activism; and accountability.

Global sustainability defines the conditions under which humans and nature, societies and the biosphere, the world and the Earth can co-exist in ways that enable productive harmony, stability and resilience to support present and future generations.

Join Alice (Founding Director) and Meg Jones (Development & Outreach Director) and other panelists as we discuss the role of social work, social policy, advocacy, young people, and community ownership in the pursuit of global sustainability.

Voices of Influence Australia will discuss the issues of forced migration from the current climate crisis, its impact on international development and human rights in this interactive panel.

The focus on this webinar is centred on mobilising marginalised or discriminated groups and strategies of how to enable them to change their situation in society, from a human rights perspective.

The focus will also be a discussion on developing strategies to support groups in precarious situations, such as economically disadvantaged groups, migrants and refugees, children, the homeless and the elderly.

The strategies combine mobilisation, education, awareness-raising, and campaigning, to target the systemic nature of disadvantaged positions.

Join this interactive panel with our Founding Director, Alice Langton. Through this event, Alice will shares the story of growth with Voices of Influence Australia, the empowerment and engagement of young people in the protection of human rights, and whats in store with Voices of Influence Australia.

In this event, Alice will explore the importance of fostering ownership in young people in strategising and creating long-term and sustainable actions in the pursuit of human rights globally. Alice will share her reflections on the international development space, human rights in the Australian context and the invisibility of young people in decision making.