The leaders of tomorrow

In the heartlands of Australia, where challenges and aspirations intersect, an organisation has been quietly reshaping the trajectories of young lives for over two decades. Youth Opportunities, a non-profit born from a genuine desire to empower the youth of Australia, has steadily grown from modest beginnings into a robust force of change since 1997. What was initially a management training tool used to increase employee motivation, soon grew to encompass school aged participants as Youth Opportunities Founder Peter Marshman OAM realised the benefit this program could have on young people. 

Based in South Australia, Youth Opportunities has this year rolled out nationally – the journey from local initiative to national innovator underscoring the pressing need for holistic youth development in a world of evolving demands.

“Young people are at the heart of everything we do – it’s where we start and end,” explains Youth Opportunities Head of Fundraising, Kerin Hayden. “Our vision and mission are about making sure young people have all the opportunities that they can to succeed at life. Not everyone is afforded that privilege and as a community we’re responsible for how we support young people to do their best. We’re giving people the tools that can change their circumstances and their outcome.” 

At its core, Youth Opportunities programs are an artful alchemy of coaching, experiential learning, and emotional intelligence-building, carefully curated to cultivate a sense of self-belief and resilience in participants. 

The programs are an opportunity for young people to explore what’s going on in their world, what motivates them, and what’s holding them back. While some young people might seek motivation to attend school or a particular class, others might need support around confidence and communications skills, or relationships with peers, teachers, and their family unit. Youth Opportunities programs provide the tools, resources and care to nurture these students through their challenges as they become the generation poised to define the future.

What sets Youth Opportunities apart is its commitment to agency. While the organisation collaborates with schools and communities to identify young individuals who would benefit the most from its programs, ultimately, it’s a personal leadership program and important that young people opt in themselves through an application process.

Youth Opportunities graduate, Adam reflects: “After learning new skills and strategies, I’m now more confident in myself, and speaking to a crowd of people I haven’t met before and not being in fear. I’m also far more motivated, especially with my enemy - schoolwork. 

I now don’t look at schoolwork as a chore, but instead just small challenges. I think the other students in the program definitely think the same but, speaking for myself, I definitely think the program has helped me as a person. I have motivation, confidence, communication, better self-esteem and I am just a happier person.”

The success stories that have emerged from Youth Opportunities are as diverse as they are inspiring. 

Young people who once shied away from encounters have transformed into confident leaders, ready to tackle the world's uncertainties head-on. And while individuals are thriving, it’s the organisation's impact on families, schools, and communities that extends the effect of these empowered youth.

“We know it works. Our outcomes are so credible and they’ve allowed us to come as far as we have,” says Hayden.

“When we influence one young person within the program, it has a flow on effect with the school community. That young person goes back to their friends and positively influences them through the tools they’ve learnt or by encouraging them to do the program. We are very evidence based and if you look at it plainly from an investment perspective it makes sense because the long-term impact of what we’re doing has significant benefit to the community.”

Their commitment to an evidence-based approach ensures that all the Youth Opportunities programs remain relevant and effective in a rapidly changing world. By staying abreast of emerging trends in education and psychology, the charity is in a prime position for its national rollout.

“As a relatively new organisation to the national stage, exposure, awareness, and advocacy is critical to our success. We've been operating in South Australia for 25 years, producing excellent outcomes and we’ve come to a place where we know we have a product that works,” says Hayden.

“When we looked at the data and realised that we were working with 0.01 percent of [Australia’s] cohort – which is what we had the capacity to work with – we realised that there was not only a need but an opportunity for us to explore [this at a national level]. When you know it works and you know young people need it, why wouldn’t you?” asks Hayden.

While South Australia offers intensive, mission-based programs, the national rollout is about community capacity and capability building and putting the great work of the Youth Opportunities program into the hands of people already working with young people in those spaces – educators.

“Our national work is a license model where we build the capability of teachers to deliver our programs. By doing this, not only are we supporting young people to develop their skills, we’re upskilling the community through teachers. The ripple effect is not just in the young person’s community but within the teachers so they’re able to benefit students in all their classrooms, rather than just (those in) the Youth Opportunities program. This has the capacity to grow significantly, and we are only limited by the funds need to reach the communities in need. 

With the seeds of expansion sown, it’s charitable partners like Audi Foundation who have worked with Youth Opportunities since 2017 that are helping to support further outreach of this incredible service. 

“Audi Foundation were among the first, outside Government funding to support the roll out of our Youth Opportunities National Programs,” says Hayden.

“We’ve gone from working with around 3,500 people in South Australia, to an additional 500 young people throughout the country, with the Audi Partnership really coming in to play next year in terms of program support right across the country,” she says.

So 25 years on, that training tool designed to help motivate employees is having a far more profound and far-reaching effect than was ever intended. Youth Opportunities continues to write its story of empowerment, resilience and optimism in a world that can sometimes feel adrift. This is an organisation that not only anchors itself in the belief that nurturing the youth today will shape the contours of a brighter, more promising tomorrow – it continues to deliver those very results.