Meet our Youth Awards Winners for 2022

In 2020 at the start of Covid-19 and at just 20 years old, Alex started his very own food charity - Alex Makes Meals. 

Since 2020 Alex has:  

• Made and prepared over 300,000 meals (3000+ meals per week) 
• Delivers to over 50 locations (including our very own The Living Room) 
• Now has a team of 80+ volunteers  
• Always stocking The Living Room fridge full of meals  

After being referred to our Transition to Work program, Vincent soon became an office local and was quickly referred to start a  Traineeship at our social enterprise, The Little Social in Hosier Lane where he has been: 

• Always so enthusiastic and determined to learn new skills  
• Dedicated and passionate  
• Engages and is creating rapport with The Living Room clients  
• Always comes in with a smile  

Vincent reminds our team every day why we do what we do.

Originally a client our ours through our Disability Employment Services, after seeing how talented she was and with the announcement that we were opening 3 new youth hubs within the west, Sharni was recommended to apply for one of the Customer Service Officer roles. 

She quickly won over the recruiting team and was offered a full-time role at our Sunshine Youth-Hub and was lately poached to our Glenroy HQ Youth Hub.  

Joshua is one of Youth Projects' Transition to Work crew working across Werribee and Melbourne's west.

He is passionate about mental health, making his role accessible by doing outreach to clients who need it (rather than them coming in), supporting his clients - holistically, coming to their level and advocating for young people when they need it.  

Joshua always goes above and beyond for his clients and has many incredible stories, but it wouldn’t be possible without the faith and empowerment he puts in his clients.  

His peers have described him as an excellent listener, who empowers his clients to achieve their goals in a safe and realistic environment.   

Kaif is a graduate lawyer, poet, and ambassador for young people.  She is passionate about social justice, mental health, migrant and refugee rights, creative spaces, youth participation in Parliament, and advocacy.  

She has been heavily involved in youth advocacy work since high school, including her involvement in YAG and Merri-bek ’s Youth Advisory Council.  

Kaif is very innovative and during the peak of the pandemic in 2020, she realised that there were no creative arts groups dedicated to youth for art within her local Merri-bek council area. So, through a council grant, she started her council's first-ever online creative arts club called ‘Blooming Innovators, which supports young artists in her local municipality.

As part of our Youth-led Content Series Kaif wrote a piece on Why Advocacy by Young People is Important, this then got seen by the Victorian Parliament and she was invited to be a part of Parliaments' 'State of the Future’ campaign where she was interviewed about the experiences of young leaders within the community.