A mobile red couch was a great conversation starter in Kingborough, Tasmania, last year, with young people taking a seat to share their views on the area’s transport issues.
With a fast growing population and physical changes in the municipality, Kingborough Council felt it was important to identify ways that local transport could become more youth friendly.
An initial series of consultations was conducted in 2008 involving representatives of the Youth Action Network Kingborough (YANK) and Youth Action Kingborough (YAK). This highlighted that access to transport is a major issue for young people in the region and more research was required to identify their needs in more detail.
As such, Council initiated the innovative ‘Conversations in Kingborough’ youth transport project in 2009.
As part of this project, a red couch was placed in outdoor public spaces to attract the attention of young people.
Researchers and a camera crew travelled around the municipality with the couch and set up conversations with young people and key stakeholders to identify their transport needs.
Over a period of three months, the red couch travelled around Kingborough starting conversations wherever it stopped – at the beach, bus stops, parks, shopping centres, schools, on the Bruny Island ferry and on roadsides.
A total of 65 young people aged
between ten and 25 years were interviewed,
as well as a number of other key stakeholders.
Council’s Youth Development Officer, Melissa Staples, said the conversations were filmed to produce a documentary of the key findings, with a view to making this available to the State Government and other key stakeholders in the transport sector.
“With their own personal stories, the young people illustrated how a lack of public transport hampered their opportunities to further their education, socialise and participate in special activities, particularly if they lived in urban fringe areas,” Melissa Staples said.
“They also raised concerns about the impact of high car usage on the environment.”
Conversations in Kingborough was an initiative of Kingborough’s Community Services Department, with funding support from the Tasmanian Office of Children and Youth Affairs through the Innovate, Include, Develop, Local Government Grant Program.
For further information contact Melissa Staples on (03) 6211 8228.
