Envisioning the Future: Muslim Youth Summit

Despite the prevalence of research that “one-size does not fit all” when dealing with minority communities, positive solutions that address the needs of Australian Muslim young people neglect to account for the voices and experiences of Muslim young people while often being embedded in Eurocentricism.

The Forward Thinking Forum Project is a unique project that is aimed at informing community capacity building endeavours that incorporate the privileged voice of the South-Western Sydney Muslims through robust focus group discussions involving 21 young Muslims. Various initiatives were generated by the participants to address the following six themes: family relationships; dating and marriage; identity and belonging; education and employment; bullying, peer pressure and online issues; and mental health and emotional well-being, all of which were identified as areas of concern prior to the focus group discussions.

The project revealed that participants were information-rich, having an excellent grasp of the needs of young people, as well as the community context. Sharing a common objective from the outset participants hoped to devise practical initiatives that would translate to meaningful social impact in the community. The dual strategy of a strength based approach and shared terms of reference informed the approach taken in the Forum enabling both participant expectations and project aims and objectives to be actualised. Participants continuously voiced their feelings of empowerment as a result of personally being involved in generating initiatives that incorporated their collective knowledge, skill and experiences.