Sriya Arcot | 2025 October

Living Streets Association’s young people were once again invited to serve as the ACT Children’s Week Youth Ambassadors for the 2025 Children’s Week Award Ceremony. This year, Sriya Arcot and Nicole Jennings fulfilled their role beautifully, impressing ACT Ministers, Children’s Week Association members, and community group volunteers in attendance. Children and Young People’s Commissioner Jodie Griffiths-Cook praised the girls for their confidence on stage, and Children’s Week Patron, the first female President of the Senate, Margaret Reid, also commended the pair for their composure.

Thanks to the exposure and skills developed as a youth ambassador of Children’s Week, Sriya had the opportunity to get work experience with the Children and Young People’s Commissioner. Sriya shares her reflections below.

Working in the Children’s and Young People Commissioner’s office was a great experience to learn a lot about what is done in helping young people and also being able to advocate about young people issues that I believe should be addressed. Everyone in the office was incredibly nice which made me feel welcomed and less nervous about the work experience.

I was assigned three tasks to do over the week which was to write a young thinker forum piece, create informational games, activities or recipes for the children’s newsletter and design some social media posts. There was also the opportunity to have a meeting with the commissioner, Jodie Griffiths Cook. I enjoyed the flexibility in how creative I could be with these tasks and did not just have to write but I could draw, create videos and many more.

For the young thinker forum piece I wrote about the worry around the issues of financial insecurity and the anxiety over future stability. Especially concerning the world now where there is a lot of unease over our futures due to the active concerns of warfare, environmental crisis and economic instability. I believe this is something that affects a lot of young people. It was great to have the opportunity to voice these worries, as well as express the various ways these issues could be addressed and solved through more financial education in schools and support programs.

This work experience has made me consider many different types of career pathways and inspired me to want to do more to be able to help and support people in the future.