The popular girls pose for selfies with a ring light, the tough guys compete to make the highest chalk mark on a brick wall, others take themselves out of circulation and flop on beanbags in the corner. Welcome to youth charity Reach’s Heroes Day
The organisation, started by AFL great Jim Stynes and filmmaker Paul Currie, aims to get young people to better understand themselves.
“Unlike year 9s of other years, the year 9s of 2022 have not had a normal experience at high school,” says Margie Bainbridge, a leading teacher at Buckley Park College in Essendon. “They have had to rely on their own courage at home to get work done.” Inside the auditoriums, giant screens list the statistics. One in five of their peers lives with a single parent. Twenty-three per cent have been bullied in the past year, 39 per cent drink alcohol to risky levels, 51 per cent are unhappy with the way they look. And then the biggie: more than 350 young people aged 18 to 24 take their own lives every year. There is silence.
Growing up is different now, warns Sophia Viola, a 14-year-old school captain of Brookside College, a prep to year 9 state school in Caroline Springs. “The majority of the time there is pressure. People feel they are going to get judged.”