Welcome to Albury-Wadonga. It’s one of the most beautiful places in Australia, but don’t expect to be able to feel your fingers or toes before midday.

Over the last few days I’ve been helping out at a thing in Albury-Wadonga (which is a place actually on the border of Vic and NSW - seriously!) called UNRYS which I think (hope) stands for United Nations Regional Youth Summit. The idea was to bring a whole lot of young people from regional Victoria and New South Wales together for 3 days to discuss local and global issues that were important to them. There ended up being about 40 young people between the ages of 14 and 19.

I know I say it a lot, but it was one of the most incredible things that I’ve been part of. This whole thing was imagined and carried out by 2 blokes - who are 18 and 19 years old. Apparently over a few drinks at a pub they decided that this’d be a cool idea to do. So home from the pub they went at 1am and began working on it. True story…

This incredible thing was created, orgnaised and run by people under the age or 21. And it was run for other young people. I am blown away by what people can achieve.

I’m going to be brutally honest. I don’t know much about regional Vic and NSW. All I know is that for some strange reason many of them like Rugby League (the views expressed in this blog are not necessarily held by the United Nations) and that there is a drought.

Over the last few days, I’ve met so many young people from places I’ve never heard of, and others I that I have but have no idea where they are. Wagga Wagga, Wangaratta, Leeton, Barellan (160km North of Wagga, and 578 km west of Sydney for those not in the know).

Nearly everyone I met absolutely loved where they live. The most common reason was because they could walk down the main street of their town in their PJ’s and no one would care (I’m not too sure whether that’s a comment on the town, or the people that live in the town…). They explained that this meant that their town was friendly and comfortable and happy. They wouldn’t choose to live anywhere else - and they meant it.

Despite this unwavering cherish for their home, the more I talked with them, the more they explained their frustrations of living in regional towns.

A group of young people told me that at their High School they have a counsellor that visits for only 2 half-days per month. They were telling me how inadequate that was. Even if they went to see the counsellor during these times, they explained that they would feel embarrassed because everybody in the town would know that you went to see the counsellor, by the next day. I compared this to my Catholic school where there was a full-time school psych. Even though I never had the need to use him - at least I had the choice.

Others told me about how difficult it is to visit other towns because there is no public transport.

Some others explained the challenge of education out in these parts. Imagine growing up in a place where the only option is year 10 - and if you wanted to go on you had to move a zillion km’s to a place where you may not know anyone, and a place that you have no idea how it works… all at the age of 14, 15, 16. I put myself in that position - then remembered that I had only moved out of home last year.

I chatted with these young people at great length about what it was like to be them. I talked to many of them about how they have their voices heard in their local community. Most of them struggled to name how they would have their voices heard in their communities. Things like Youth Advisory Councils were simply unknowns.

The issues for regional young people is something that I’ve never really thought of before this journey. I did think that it must be tough growing up away from the cities, but I put that down to me being too precious about not wanting to grow up around rollerskating rinks or McDonalds.

I suppose, for me, it’s not the tangible things that make the challenges in regional areas. What the challenge is, is that many of these young people were simply not aware of things that I was aware of (whether it by Youth Advisory Councils, or jobs, or uni courses or whatever). It’s the opportunities.

When I was in places like Halls Creek or or Warmun or Derby, I saw the difficulties that these young people had with isolation, inadequate education (many schools only go to year 10) and opportunities. I suppose, for some reason, I shrugged a lot of this off when I was in the Kimberley. I thought it was unfair and really tough for these young people, but a big part of me simply thought that ‘this is the way it is’ and I went on with my life.

However, spending the weekend with these young people from regional Vic and NSW was different. I felt shocked and upset when these young people described their experience of isolation, of not having their voices heard, of violence, of inadequate education. Yet, these issues were no different to those in the Kimberley region of WA, so why was I so outraged now? Why did I suddenly not accept that ‘this is the way it is’?

I think it’s because these young people are more like me. What I mean is that they are generally white, they speak like me, they eat the same things as me, their parents may work for the Government like mine, they have similar dreams to me and all that sort of stuff. Just because these young people were more like me, I see the unfairness.

It has been quite a revelation for me personally.

If this weekend has taught me anything (other than beanies and gloves are a necessity in this part of the world) is that growing up in the country is different. It certainly has it’s benefits, but it is bloody tough too. There is more need to push opportunities out into these parts of Australia, because unless we bring them out to these towns, these young people will never know about them. It isn’t and shouldn’t be ‘just the way it is’.