International Youth Day: Focusing on our future

Rebecca Archer 
Welcome to the Remarkables grant Thornton's podcast that seeks to uncover stories about remarkable people doing incredible things for their community, bettering the world for future generations, and inspiring others to do the same. I'm Rebecca Archer and today I'm coming to you with a very special episode. 

We just celebrated International Youth Day on Saturday 12 August – this year’s theme was ‘Towards a sustainable future’. While we constantly hear about issues facing the world’s future as adults, it had us thinking: could we look at this another way? We asked the kids of Grant Thornton what they see as the biggest issues and how to solve them. We want to know their thoughts on these issues, but we also took the opportunity to ask them what remarkable means to them in their life – because we can’t forget everything there is to be grateful for. We hope you enjoy and learn something new on this special episode of The Remarkables…

Rebecca Archer 
What's your name and age, and can you tell me what remarkable might look like to you in your life?

Axel
My name is Axel and I'm ten. To me, reach for remarkable means is when you put your heart and your body to everything you've got in your body to achieve what you really want to achieve. 

For example, when my soccer team made it to the finals of our club, the first half we were losing 20 and we had a debrief with our coach and our coach told us to put everything we've got to make a hopefully a comeback. And at full time of the game, the score was 3-3 and we went to penalty shootouts. Unfortunately, we lost in penalty shootouts, but our coach was really happy that we pushed through the game and did not give up whatsoever.

Olivia
First name’s Olivia and I'm eight years old. My parents.

Lara
I’m Lara and 15. Remarkable is kind of just something that's outstanding and like a remarkable human – someone that does something out of the ordinary that deserves to be praised. I feel like a remarkable human in my life’s probably like my mum because she does a lot, and it's pretty amazing how she keeps up with it.

Declan
My name is Declan, I am ten years old. Traveling all around the world and having world peace. 

Elise
Elise and I'm six years old – having good fun. 

Tabitha
My name is Tabitha and I'm eleven years old. It means something amazing and something beautiful and outstanding. 

Eden
I'm Eden and I'm twelve years old. I'm amazed by my family; they're just cool people.

Gil
My name's Gil and I'm 14 years old. In my life, I'd say remarkable would be something unexpected happening to me, but I'd say that remarkable thing is usually a positive thing.

James
My name is James, and my age is nine years old. Going on a bike ride with my family.

Audrey
My name is Audrey and I'm 14 years old. Remarkable to me looks like people being kind to each other and small acts of kindness standing out. 

Tom
I'm Tom and I'm nine. Having good friends and family and just being able to do things that not a lot of people could do in different parts of the world.

Riley
My name is Riley and I'm 15 years old. Achieving big goals, big milestones, or very hard and complicated challenges.

Audrey
Hi, I'm Audrey, and I'm ten. Remarkable looks like, to me, outside what is expected, better than great, and people trying to make a good impact on the world.

William
My name is William and I'm 13. Hanging out with your friends and doing family activities.

Maddie
My name's Maddie and I am ten years old. To me, remarkable looks like how a community works together in such a remarkable way and how we can find this cooperation anywhere, even in our own house. For example, my mum, who works hard at work and then when she gets home after a long day, again, she works hard.

Jordan
Jordan and I'm 14 years old. Doing something incredibly difficult.

Josh
I'm Josh and I'm 13. I think, to me, remarkable is the world and its diversity – how we've all grown up on one planet, yet we've all grown up to be so different from each other – how we've grown to have so many different foods, different cultures and different ways of life, different beliefs.

Rebecca Archer 
What's the biggest problem facing the world's future and how can we fix it?

Axel
I believe that global warming and climate change will continue to be big issues for the planet. You can see that temperatures are rising and there are more and more storms. It is getting worse and worse, and it is caused by humans, and we need to act before it's too late. We need to find an embrace on other options to produce energy, such as solar panels, wind turbines, and we also need to stop wasting food and buy and eat local, sustainable food.

Olivia
Pollution. Creating more public bins.

Lara
Facing the world's future, the biggest issue is probably going to be pollution. Like plastic pollution, light pollution, air pollution, because as much as we try to change it now, it still already has a pretty big impact in our lives, which is probably going to extend to the future. 

I feel like what we're doing now with trying to get rid of single use plastics is going to help, but really just even down to coffee pods and stuff like that, which produces pollution. Just trying to change little things in everyday life that can be changed to a sustainable version of it.

Declan
Racism. Have you heard of the Voice referendum? It's where the Aboriginal people did a voice to Parliament. 

We’ve got to look after the environment. Stop chopping down trees to make more room for houses. If you see three bits of rubbish, you pick them up and put them in the bin. 

Tabitha
AI taking away jobs in the future, like computer, art – it could be taking away the benefit of learning. Maybe not taking it to advantage like searching up answers, maybe finding the good in it instead of using the bad in it. 

Eden
I think pollution, I think that's like a big thing, and it could change and stuff and that could be really bad. I think, by not so much plastic and not plastic bottles and I think could be all reusable and we could use more recyclable stuff.

Gil
I believe the biggest problem in the world in the future would be people having a lack of empathy for each other and a lack of understanding of problems. And I think this is led by not having much open mindedness and staying in an echo chamber of what you believe in. 

I think a major way to fix it is by showing empathy to other people. So, trying to think what they are thinking, allow yourself to take on other perspectives on issues and things like that.

James
Everybody dying because they don't get the medical help they need. Make medical bills cheaper.

Audrey
Global warming. I think together as a society, we should come together and work together to just decrease the pollution and just help each other.

Tom
I think it's going to be the oceans because there's a lot of plastic going in every year and if there's no fish, then there's lots of people who live near oceans or fishermen, and people will not make a living. Encourage people to put their rubbish in the bin or donate money to help clean up the waters.

Riley
AI because it can replace many people's jobs. Regulate it and control it so it doesn't go out of control.

Audrey
Climate change and running out on resources since we're destroying animals’ habitats. Less waste, recycle to protect our oceans, plant more trees and buying safer products like not products that don't harm animals to test it and not much palm oil in them.

William
Deforestation. Maybe after cutting down a tree, you replant the tree.

Maddie
AI is developing so fast and how AI will maybe someday take our jobs, and this may be overreacting a bit, but maybe someday AI will even take over the world and this will probably be a great big problem in the future. I think the obvious answer, but yet a good answer, is to have peace of mind and make sure that we always know more than what we teach AI.

Jordan
The increasing amount of young homeless people because they don't have the resources to learn about new technology and they can't get jobs because of it. Educate young people on the new technology and how to adapt to it and make housing more affordable for people that are already homeless.

Josh
For me, I believe the biggest problem for the world in the future has got to be climate change. It's probably going to be a popular one, but climate change is really the end all, be all for the problems the world has extreme weather events, we have more floods, more bushfires, and just pollution from humans everywhere is really just yeah, it's the biggest issue.

Well, I think to fix climate change, we really just have to try and as a world band together to try and keep up agreements such as the Paris Agreement and Tokyo Protocols that we made earlier. And another big thing you need to do is you need to raise awareness for these themes – switch to sustainable energy, like renewable energies that won't pollute the environment.

Rebecca Archer
Now, an important question and reflection is what can adults do to lessen the impacts of what's worrying our children for the future? Is our focus in the right place? 

We want to take the time to thank all of our participants in this episode. I think we can be confident that the world has a bright future. 

Stay tuned in the series for the guest on our next episode. She works with the young people of today to build a kinder world in the future. Any guesses on who she could be? 

If you liked this podcast and would like to hear more remarkable stories, you can find, like and subscribe to The Remarkables Podcast by Grant Thornton Australia on Apple podcasts or Spotify. Leave us a review or some ideas on who you'd like to hear from next. I'm Rebecca Archer – thank you for listening.