Wow! That is how I came away from interviewing Tayla Hore. The 18-year-old was recently awarded the Gannawarra Shire Young Citizen of the Year and she is most certainly someone who is going to make a difference in this world.
Nominated by Matt Allan, Youth Health Promotion Worker at Northern District Community Health, Tayla was presented the award for her work in organising the Cohuna Youth Space in 2019 and 2020.
Working with the Gannawarra Shire Council and Northern District Health on events and activities for the community’s youth over the past two years, Tayla believes that being a young person puts her in good stead to understand what the youth of the district need. “I think the appeal of it is, to children, when adults try and create stuff for children, in the youth’s minds, they’re thinking, well, they don’t know what we want, they don’t understand us, they don’t get us, they don’t know what we’re going through, even though they might have 20 years ago, or 15 years ago, or 10 years ago, they don’t know what we’re going through now because times change really quickly.
“However, I think the appeal of the youth space was that it was created by a young person for young people who understood what it was like to go through bad situations and circumstances now and understood what it was like to be a young person now. I think that was really appealing for some people,” Tayla explained.
One of Tayla’s beliefs is that everyone deserves a safe space and the same opportunities regardless of background or circumstances. She could see that there were kids slipping behind because their families could not afford tutoring, and kids who would wander the streets at night when it was not a safe environment for them to be in. “I’m very big on equity, not just equality, but equity. So, giving everyone the things that they need to get to the point of equality,” she said.
“I organised with Northern District [Community Health] and with the Shire to start the Cohuna Youth Space, which was open Friday nights, where kids could come because I’d rather them be there in a safe environment where it was an adult-free area. There were no adults allowed in unless they had a Working with Children Check, and they were one of our two volunteers at the time. They could be safe, they could have free tutoring, they could have access to counsellors, access to medical advice, and just have the same opportunities that everyone else had.”
Despite a slow start, a rapid marketing campaign saw the space attract an average of 40 young people each week. “I started with this idea that only a few kids would come because I’d been to a lot of youth events in my area and with school, and not a lot of kids show up to those events because it’s not cool and it’s not popular. I was momentarily worried about that, in a sense I thought, well if it wasn’t a popular place then people aren’t going to go and the kids who need to be there aren’t going be there either.”
Two of the qualities I noticed when chatting with Tayla were her passion and her drive. She is not one to turn a blind eye and leave the problem to someone else or take no for an answer. She explained, “I cannot tell you how many times I have been told, as a young person, not only having my ideas shut down, but adults telling me their hands are tied and there’s nothing they can do about a situation and that there’s nothing they can do to help. I felt that that was wrong. Honestly, I felt that there were things that could have been done if people had the motivation and the drive to do it.”
The roles Tayla has undertaken have allowed her to develop skills that will be invaluable in future roles and employment. “I definitely learnt a lot about project management and planning. I was like, ‘let’s just do it’. When I first started I had to sit down with Matt and we had upwards of 10 meetings before we started because we had to get everything out on the table – what we wanted, what was the initial aim of the project, what did I expect of it, what did he expect of it, what our ideologies were, what we wanted to get from it and was it going to impact the shire positively, was it going to reflect good on the shire, was it going to reflect good for the kids and all that sort of stuff. Then we had to mind map what it was going to be, where it was going to be, what was a good location, what was a good price, is it going to be a paid thing, is it going to be free, when are we going to hold it… It was a lot easier in my head before we started planning.”
Mick Hore, Tayla’s father said, “She’s a pretty good kid and she’s always had that in her. She’s always worried about other people, probably to the detriment of herself sometimes. We were over the moon; we were super proud and fairly excited for her.”
What does the future hold? Tayla is undertaking an Agents Representative Certificate and intends to get a job in the real estate industry for now. Her next focus on a local community level is accessibility within the Shire and, listening to the passion in her voice, this is another area she will no doubt find success.
