by Jazzmyn Bieleny

MONDAY 12/8/24:

Today I met the lovely staff at YO Bendigo. At the beginning of the day, Caitlin, who is the YO Bendigo Trainee, showed me what she does day-to-day. She showed me how to use different platforms that YO Bendigo use to advertise events, workshops and activities like Mailchimp. She also introduced me to the Ambedo magazine and gave me information on how that is created. Today I went to the Kangaroo Flat Primary School and got to attend the ‘My Story, Understanding My Culture’ project. This is a project working with young First Nations people to connecting with and share their culture with the broader school community. They are designing uniform pieces with Indigenous art that they have created. It was super interesting to learn an overview of the project and see what the group has been working on. When I got back to the office, I got the opportunity to look over my resume with Leon, who is the Youth Lead and works with the Youth Council. I received helpful feedback and learned more about what the Youth Council does. I finished the day working on promotions for BendiGLOW with Teddy, who supports the YO Events program. I helped make a video, social media posts and started updating the BendiGLOW Youth Fest poster. I did all this using Canva. 

TUESDAY 13/8/24:

Today I started with editing some articles for the next Ambedo magazine. I thought the articles, all written by young people, were really interesting. I then went across to Galkangu, where most of the other City of Greater Bendigo staff work, to meet with Tash. She is the social media manager for the City of Greater Bendigo main channels, and I learned about the City social media channels which was super interesting and how she manages these communities online and how organisations use and manage social media. I got an insight into the communications and marketing side of the City of Greater Bendigo events and projects. In the Afternoon I worked on the BendiGLOW Youth Fest website and social posts. Later in the day I participated in a meeting about the City of Greater Bendigo Youth Awards program where we looked at draft designs made by the City graphic design team. At the end of the day I went to the YO Events meeting where we assessed entries for the Battle of the Bands for BendiGLOW Youth Fest. I thought it was really cool that everyone in the team got to share their thoughts and input about all different parts of the event such as the Battle Entrants, layout of the event. The YO Events team is really fun and a great opportunity for Young People to get involved in their community. 

WEDNESDAY 14/8/24:

This morning I went to a fire drill planning meeting in the blue room, followed by the Community Connections team meeting, which is the broader team that the YO Bendigo staff are a part of. I got an insight into how staff meetings are structured and the different roles and work of the other members of the team that I hadn't had a chance to work with. We all went across to Galkangu after the meeting for the Community Partnerships Unit Olympics Closing Ceremony. The Unit participated in office based sports and games throughout the Olympics and answered trivia questions for points. I helped Teddy and our Coordinator Jo create the prizes for this ceremony. When I was back in the office, I worked on designing some elements for the BendiGLOW web pages with Teddy. I learnt some new editing skills on Canva, which was helpful. After that we used these elements to create web pages. which was super interesting. This included some web coding and I learnt a lot of new things. 

THURSDAY 15/8/24:

Today I started with planning my tasks for the day with Chelsea, who looks after the YO Bendigo Facility, runs the YO Media program and supports the Engage! program. I began working on my own Ambedo Magazine article - ‘Why you should take a gap year' and then designed some signage posters on Canva for ‘Funloong Family Fun Day,’ which I enjoyed. Later that afternoon took part in a planning meeting for ‘Fruit Punch’, a dive-in movie pool party for Trans and Gender Diverse Young People.  I learnt about what goes into planning events, which was interesting. 

FRIDAY 16/8/24: 

Today was my last day at YO Bendigo, the first thing I did was my work experience evaluation with Teddy which took place at the Old Green Bean. Following that I submitted my Ambedo article to the YO Media team to publish in the next issue. I published this article on the YO Bendigo Website with the assistance of Caitlin and Teddy, and continued working on the BendiGLOW Youth Fest Poster. In the afternoon I helped set up a PA and other sound equipment for the YO Bandigo workshop with Frankie Bell who is the facilitator. I've never done anything like that before and it was cool to see how everything is set up. 

I really enjoyed my experience at YO Bendigo. Thank you to the YO team for giving me this opportunity to expand my workplace skills and learn more about YO Bendigo and local government. If you have an opportunity to do work experience and you're interested in youth and/or community development work, YO Bendigo is a very welcoming place.