This year, we’ve seen young people show up to fight for climate action and we’ve seen them speak out on mental health, racial justice, and many other social, environmental and cultural concerns of this era.
The power of younger generations to create positive social change can’t be underestimated.
For this youth-driven change to be representative of Australia’s culturally, socially and geographically diverse communities, we need to give all kids equal opportunity to play a part.
The Geelong Kids as Catalysts program brings this philosophy to life. The program is a partnership between Kids Thrive and two local foundations, Geelong Community Foundation and Give Where You Live Foundation, (with the support of other government and philanthropic foundations).
“We accepted an invitation by the organisation to visit one of the Kids Thrive programs operating in the City of Wyndham,” explains Gail Rodgers, CEO at the Geelong Community Foundation.
“The passion that the young people had for their community project and their investment in wanting to make a difference in the community was priceless.”
“The whole notion of education and philanthropy, it’s been on our radar for years,” Gail says, and supporting the Kids Thrive program “offered an opportunity to extend the education of young people regarding active philanthropy – where they become engaged in taking direct action for community change.”
“The development of a partnership between Kids Thrive and Northern Bay College saw two great organisations come together to support a community of young people, many of whom are from disadvantaged circumstances.”
“A recipe for success,” Gail says assuredly.
Kerry Farrance, Head of Impact at Give Where You Live Foundation, was equally enthused by the program’s outcomes.
“The young people coming out of this program are really going to take their learnings and understandings forward into life,” Kerry says. “It’s going to forever influence their thinking and how they approach the world.”
Creative thinking helping to drive change
Kids Thrive is the brainchild of Dr Andrea (Ande) Lemon, a playwright, director, dramaturge and author; and Andrea Rieniets, a singer, songwriter, composer, musical director and community development artist.
“We both have a long history of professional arts practice, and community cultural development work,” says Ande.
“After 10 years of developing Kids Thrive and our creative approach to child-led change, all our programs have curriculum support, and a strong evidence base. The work is co-designed in schools and has a very strong community leadership component with steering committees and working groups.”
“…we want to start working with the kids while they’ve got that sparkle in their eye.”
Both Lemon and Rieniets are enthusiasts for “using the arts and creativity as a platform and using creative approaches as a medium to really engage children, and to get children to engage their family and their community, too.”

“Ten years ago we didn’t even know that we were developing a primary prevention approach,” says Andrea. “This was just our experience of 30 years on the ground telling us, we want to work in those early years, we want to start working with the kids while they’ve got that sparkle in their eye.”
“In Kids as Catalysts, upper primary students find what matters to them in their local community. They initiate and drive community partnerships, co-designing projects to address local issues, and taking the lead in pitching for funding and delivering these projects with the community.”
“We have worked with numerous community foundations over the past 10 years,” Andrea continues.
“These are foundations that can see the value in bringing skills into the community to build local capacity for the longer term.
“For every child that participates, up to 10 local community members learn to work with kids to drive local change, and a further 20 community members benefit from the community action project. This builds the mental health of both students and community members.”
With Victorian Covid restrictions closing access to schools in 2020, Kids Thrive has also been working with its Geelong partners to develop Kids as Catalysts Online – building the sustainability, reach and impact of the program in the region, and facilitating access to the program for more schools and communities across Australia.
A winning philanthropic approach
Kerry and the team at Give Where You Live Foundation saw that GKaC was an opportunity to collaborate on a really powerful program in the Geelong region.
“This program is a perfect example of how we like to work and operate in the Geelong region,” says Kerry.
“There’s a real passion and willingness for everyone to step in and actually work to achieve positive outcomes in our community, it’s really come to the fore at the moment.”
Likewise, the Geelong Community Foundation saw a unique opportunity in the Geelong Kids as Catalysts program.
“The program brings another tool to a teacher’s armoury that might just be the key that creates a change in attitude, builds a student’s self-esteem and confidence, develops more positive connections with others and a social conscience,” she says.
“We take a long-term, heart-centred view of children as creators and collaborators in community.”
“Kids Thrive understood the needs of the community and the need to embed the kind of learning within the school community that would foster a change in culture.”
Community philanthropy has long been a champion for place-based collaboration, an approach that has earned its very own award category at the annual Australian Philanthropy Awards .
The GKaC program became the very first winner of the Community Philanthropy Award in November, a stand-out program for its ingenuity coupled with a dedicated local focus.
“We take a long-term, heart-centred view of children as creators and collaborators in community,” says Andrea.
With this belief at the core of the program, it’s no wonder young people feel empowered to pursue positive change.
“Immersing kids in philanthropy, and getting them to understand what it is at that very early age is really important, and just for kids to understand that anyone can be a philanthropist, you don’t need to be rich,” Gail asserts with a smile.
“Education and knowledge is power! Whatever we can do to encourage young people to stay connected to education will enable communities to develop and thrive.”
For more information about Kids Thrive, visit the website or email andrea@kidsthrive.org.au