Last week nine interns from Youth Take Over Loddon Campaspe hosted an event at Castlemaine Contemporary Art Space (CASPA) to launch the creative outcome of their Youth Take Over project – a new website for local athletics event the Castlemaine Gift.
The Castlemaine Gift has been running for more than 100 years and is an important event on the town calendar but has never had its own website – the challenge of creating one was handed over to nine interns, aged between 15 and 23, who brought a youth lens to the project.
The interns, comprised of a mix of budding graphic designers, historians, artists, audio, and visual producers, and SEO wizards, worked together for eight weeks, under the direction of Rob Jennings and Bradley Dawson from local digital agency ‘We Push Buttons’.
Working with ‘We Push Buttons’ allowed the young people to gain key insights into what it’s like to work in the digital media and design industries and how their individual skill sets and interests could be applied to the wealth of jobs available in the field.
Across the course of their internship, interns gained key employability skills such as teamwork, project management, and organisational skills, alongside industry-specific skills such as graphic design, web design, branding, and marketing skills.
Ryan Hale Coordinator of the program said that’s since Youth Take Over’s inception in 2021 there have been more than 50 young people come through the program.
“We know, from youth-led research, that young people in our region are not getting the local labour market information, work experience, or industry contacts they need to smoothly transition from school to the world of work,” Ryan said.
“Youth Take Over aims to fill this gap, through facilitated, team-based work experience opportunities – or ‘Take Overs’ – that connect young people to jobs in our local industries and build their work-readiness skills.”
Early this year, Ari, Lilly, Nathan, Patrick, Rowany, Sammie, Storm, Wilbur & Zakk all took brave steps on their career adventures by putting their hand up to join the ‘Become a Digital Campaigner’ Take Over team. Their job, over 8 weeks, was to create a new website and digital campaign for local athletics event, Castlemaine Gift, which, despite running for over 100 years and being a key event on the town’s calendar, has never had an online presence.
At the start of their Take Over, the team met with their client, Darryl Nettleton from Castlemaine Gift, who briefed them about the event and his vision for the website and they set about bringing this to life. Darryl met with the group throughout the design process to offer feedback on their progress.
One team member, Lilly McCarthy, a history student, delved into the Gift’s rich history archives and composed several stories that feature on the website, alongside illustrations by another team member, Rowany Mills.
“It was really challenging and a big task,” Lilly told the Express.
“But it was great fun and everyone had different strengths. ‘I think that everyone on the team was just so creative and wonderful to work with. On the outside it might seem like these things that they were doing are easy – they’re not easy! They take so much effort and so much work, and so much creativity, and I think they all did a wonderful job and I’m very proud of them actually!”
Rowany said she found it to be a really invaluable experience and gave her a new perspective on going into the workforce.
“I’ve just finished a diploma in design where most of the work was solo so it was great to be able to work on a real project with a real client,” Rowany said.
At the completion of the eight weeks, the team of young people had successfully created a digital campaign for the Castlemaine Gift, which included a new event logo and marketing materials alongside the website itself.
Youth Take Over is an initiative of North Central Local Learning & Employment Network (LLEN) in partnership with the Loddon Campaspe LLEN and sponsored by the Agnico Eagle Community Partnership Program. Take Overs are happening all over the Loddon Campaspe region. You can find out more at youthtakeover.org.au.