Jason Wood (La Trobe, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Very tragically, we have had in the outer eastern suburbs of Melbourne a number of terrorist related incidents and events. I recently have had many constituents contact me regarding their concerns, including parents who wrote about their children being radicalised. I have met with Dr Anne Aly, an academic who is an expert in this field. One of the biggest issues facing Muslim youth today is a feeling of disenfranchisement, of not having a group to belong to.

Dr Aly told me that interviews conducted with former radicalised youth and young people on the path to radicalisation also suggest that providing these youth with alternatives, positive pathways, is a critical factor in preventing and disrupting the process of radicalisation before it becomes a danger to our society as a whole. This is backed by empirical evidence and research that highlights the importance of alternatives to the influence of radicalisation influence on young people. In addition, young people are often left out of the process of developing solutions to violent extremism, despite being the target group of these programs. Often, community consultations and attempts to engage communities in the consultation process fail to reach and include young people.

This is why I have met with Dr Aly regarding the MYHACK program, which properly addresses both of these issues. Firstly, the program provides young people who are at risk of engaging in violent extremism with an opportunity to participate in the development of solutions to violent extremism themselves. This is done by getting a group of young people together who are potentially at risk of becoming radicalised, along with those that may not be. The group has workshopped solutions to problems that directly face their own generation. This process works to also raise awareness amongst young people of violent extremism, while providing them with a platform for expressing themselves.

Secondly, the process addresses the significant issue of youth engagement, because it involves youth coming up with solutions for youth. The kind of solutions generated by the MYHACK events will enhance provision of services for the intervention and prevention at a broader level. At the recent Common Vulnerabilities Exposures Summit—CVE—at the White House, in Washington, the CVE and youth panel stressed to the audience the need to engage young people in ways that meet their demands.

The MYHACK project is designed to use youth voices to stimulate product and innovation as well. The application of the Hackathon mode means that any one of the MYHACK programs could potentially yield very strong innovations and strategies, developed by youth, to actually be realised. I very much look forward and am lobbying very hard to get a MYHACK project launched in La Trobe, not only for my electorate but also for the whole of Victoria.

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