Heaps Decent is an Australian organisation empowering young people through skills building, cultural access and creativity.
Working with underrepresented and marginalised youth, our participatory program of music and visual media activities provides a pathway to discovery, personal growth and agency through self-expression.Last week Adam Bozzetto and I flew down to work with young people in Wagga Wagga, NSW. The trip was centred around the young guys in the Riverina Juvenile Justice Centre as well as the Riverina Community College, where we did a couple of really great evening sessions with the more advanced participants. Adam worked on a French-infused hip hop song while I worked on a deeper beat with one of the regulars ‘Chitta’.
The following morning, we stopped in for a session with the kids a Bidgee School, a school for young people with behavioural difficulties. There we wrote a couple of fun songs, the standout for me was a dubstep track I wrote with the guys. It was awesome to see their conviction in the direction of the song, they had strong ideas about what they wanted to make which always makes the session exciting.
Riverina Juvenile Justice Centre
Boz and me in the 40 degree Wagga heat
Boz at the controls in the RCC Studio
The nuts and bolts of my Heaps Decent workshop setup
Propeller engines on the tarmac, as Heaps Decent facilitators we spend more time on prop engine planes….
Boz finishing songs at any opportunity – in this case, 30,000 feet in the air
Words/Photos: Charlie O’Brien