From conversation to collective action: launching a youth empowerment movement on Thursday Island

In a recent story for Australian Baha’i Horizons, we explored the efforts of initiating spiritual conversations with youth on Thursday Island. As the local friends have a keen desire to learn about raising up capable young protagonists of change, their recent experience illustrates a crucial lesson: sometimes, sustaining those conversations requires the establishment of a broader community movement involving all ages. 

Waibene, or Thursday Island, is the main hub in the Torres Strait Islands and is home to a vibrant community of about 3,000 people. After initiating some community-building activities, including two junior youth groups that connect roughly 15 families, the few friends running these activities recognised the urgent need to expand in size and capacity. 

The initial approach, while valuable, was proving difficult to sustain. Efforts to use the materials regarding the period of youth, contributing to advancement, and fostering mutual support in direct conversations with significant numbers of older youth were hampered by the small team’s existing commitments. It became clear that while the current junior youth would soon grow to be youth themselves, a new approach was needed if the community-building process was to be accelerated.

A pivotal shift in thinking occurred: rather than trying to sustain all the conversations and action themselves, the team sought to establish a local discourse space about youth empowerment, leveraging a broad community interest spurred by recent events around youth crime and a government survey. 

The team realized that their insights from the Baha’i Institute process and the Junior Youth Spiritual Empowerment Program (JYSEP) could inform a wider community dialogue. To initiate this process, a team member posted a general inquiry on the local Facebook community noticeboard (a key means of community sharing with about 6,000 members), asking who was thinking about and doing things to support the youth in the community. 

The response was significant. Almost immediately, a community meeting was organised, drawing around 15 youth and adults. This marked the beginning of regular community gatherings to discuss the role of youth and develop lines of action aimed at their empowerment. The meetings were guided by handouts with some principles consistent with the accumulated experience of the worldwide Baha’i community related to empowering youth.

From these collaborative meetings, an informal core group of collaborators emerged that took collective ownership of the effort. This blossoming movement soon became known as ‘Waibene Youth Empowerment’. 

Their first lines of action were concrete and addressed clear community needs. They compiled and published a weekly schedule of all available youth activities—from sports to arts and the junior youth program—filling a crucial gap in community information. 

Next, responding to youth reports of boredom and a lack of activities during school breaks, they consulted and planned a two-day youth empowerment holiday program. This initiative purposefully went beyond sport, which is often the default pathway for youth engagement. It aligned with the NAIDOC week theme of the ‘next generation’ and offered workshops in media skills, weaving, and dance, alongside one lesson from the junior youth program. About eight junior youth participated, supported by ten adults.

As the team moves through the next few months, their focus is on solidifying this foundation. They plan to develop the collaborators’ capacity to converse about empowerment with their own families and to deepen their understanding by drawing on the framework of JYSEP—especially its focus on developing a moral framework, spiritual perception, and powers of expression. The vision now includes the possibility of a regular, community-inspired after-school program, building on the initial success. 

The role young people play in the building of vibrant communities is also set to be explored later this month at the Australian Social Cohesion Summit. Hosted by the Scanlon Foundation Research Institute, the Summit will bring together leaders from government, research, business, and community sectors to explore how youth, women, and neighbourhoods can foster resilience and inclusion in society. 

As the international governing body of the Baha’i community, the Universal House of Justice, states: