What is YES Brisbane?
YES Brisbane is a portal to showcase the activities and initiatives of young people in Brisbane. It is about highlighting the social innovation of those starting new businesses, hosting events, running community projects and everything in between.
We recognise young people with ideas and dreams have an inherent need for support in a wide variety of forms. We all face many similar challenges in our roles as project leaders, and YES Brisbane aims to improve our collective and individual abilities to create positive change.
By connecting you with knowledge, skills and resources that lead to better community engagement and leadership, we aim to create an an intimate environment enabling you to recognise your individual assets, apply them to your specific project, and think critically about your role in the world.
This website has been designed as a forum for the sharing and creation of knowledge.
We believe education is the key to filling the gap between awareness and action, so often missing in the classrooms of formal education.
History of YES Brisbane
In 2007, Brisbane City Council’s Youth Team ran “YES 07″- a Youth Enterprise Symposium that brought together 100 young people to offer training, access to business development information and mentorship as well as a great networking opportunity for the young movers and shakers of Brisbane.
The symposium was filled mainly with young people who saw entrepreneurship as “business”. But a handful of attendees saw beyond business, and the power of using entrepreneurship for social change.
In mid-2008, the Initiate Summit held at QUT was run in a similar format but with a focus on social entrepreneurship and community development. In late 2008, a reunion of YES07 attendees saw the conversation move toward the need for a sustained effort to create a community of young people in Brisbane who like to “do stuff and make things happen”.
At the end of 2008, a reunion of “YES” attendees was held at the School of Arts building in Ann St. There was an obvious trend toward social entrepreneurship in the activities these people were now involved in.
So in 2009, a small group of young entrepreneurs (now called YES Brisbane) set out to discover what training was available beyond simple business education for young entrepreneurs and social innovators.
Along the way they partnered with Volunteering Queensland to host “Engage Me” – a conference for “old” people who were interested in the ways young people were going about making a difference.
The verdict from their research was that young people make a difference much differently than those who’ve come before them. The adaptive nature of Gen Y is a skillful advantage when it comes to community development.
In 2010, Brisbane City Council’s youth program “Visible Ink” is partnering with Volunteering Queensland and YES Brisbane to bring you the social inkubator program.
