Good News from my Home Town: Youth Week

An expo week showcasing talent is an important feature of the government calendar. The UN has a week, the Australian Federal Government has a week, the NSW Government has a week and Local Government may too. Usually they choose the same week, sometimes not.

School programs are year long. In Australia, the school year goes from late January to late December. It is different in other places in the world. Generally the school year follows summer months. People have largely forgotten in the advanced economies, but the school year is often set up to have holidays in summer so as to allow the children help gather the harvest. Not much of an issue in the West.

In all schools there are many kids who are involved with performance art, like Dance, Music, drama, visual communications, public speaking and debating. Sport too. Youth week is a good opportunity to allow politicians to visit schools and talk about their patronage while appearing to marvel at the work of kids. This was evident when Bowen visited Fairvale a few years ago and talked about growing up with Harry Kewell and becoming a government minister. Or when Tripodi shook hands with winners of a chess competition a few years before. Tripodi was late for the presentations but was still applauded and later became minister.

Fairfield is rightly taking pride in the performance of its youth. Showcasing talent is essential for development and growth and kids do it well. Some of those kids performing at a rock eisteddfod will one day be world famous rockers. Jon English showed that, from Cabramatta HS. Or a young lady does a great job spelling. Both brilliant examples of migrants leading in our community, and I am aware the young lady may well have been born in Australia. We live in a migrant community. We do well because of that. Our population has changed ethnicity a large number of times since James Meehan surveyed the fields. Youth Week allows us to see our young doing great.