Angelica Ojinnaka
Your Australian Youth Representative to the United Nations for 2022
Hello! I’m Angelica Ojinnaka, and I am excited to hearing from, learning beside and leading with young people across Australia to discover the issues that are most important to them.
Together, let’s create a youth responsive society.
As your Youth Representative to the UN, I get the honour of hearing from, learning beside, and leading with young people. This year, I want to understand and explore how do we, young people (in all our diversities), envision a youth-responsive Australia. Young people have a plethora of expertise to offer. Most of my life has been learning to find my feet, and find a way to be me and have people like me heard.
Together, this year I want to explore the tables already created by young people, where ideas of many diverse identities and experiences are represented. I want to bring these youth centred tables together with tables absent with young people, in a collaborative and community-centred approach. This year’s Youth Representative Program will understand the ‘best of what is’ and ‘areas for systemic change’, in order to facilitate discussions and hope in ‘what could be’ for Australia’s youth.
Hello! I’m Angelica Ojinnaka, your representative to take the issues you care most about to domestic and international forums.
International Engagement
Contribute to Australia’s youth international engagement.
ECOSOC Youth Forum 2022
COVID-19 Recovery: Youth taking action for a sustainable future
19th to 20th of April, 2022
The Forum will provide a platform for young people, including Australian youth, to engage in a dialogue with Member States and other actors on concrete actions to rebuild from COVID-19 and to advance towards the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Decade of Action.
Angelica will share best practices, lessons learned, solutions as well as creative and innovative ideas with Member States, other youth and stakeholders on the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and also on the sustainable development goals under review in the Economic and Social Council and the High-level Political Forum in 2022.
If you would like to contribute to the Forum, you can email a contribution directly to Angelica at youthrep@unyouth.org.au.
We’re situating youth experiences and perspectives in the centre.
The Youth Representative Program (its shortened title) is responsible for representing the views and lived experiences of young people within Australia to international bodies such as the United Nations. We also engage domestically because recognise the importance of our communities and institutions at home understanding what it is like to be a young person in today’s world.
To ensure we represent all young people, the Youth Representative Program embarks on Australia’s largest nationwide consultation of young people 12 to 25. Traditionally know as the Listening Tour, we travel to every state and territory, engaging with young people from all cultural and economic backgrounds, in urban, regional and rural areas.
Hearing from you as a young person is the most important role we have; otherwise, we wouldn’t know how to represent you.
Hello! I’m Angelica Ojinnaka, your representative to take the issues you care most about to domestic and international forums.
Hello, I’m Angelica!
This is my official biography (bio) and explains a bit of who I am!
Angelica Ojinnaka is an advocate and researcher for youth affairs and gender equality. She has extensive experience in providing policy advice and research assistance on areas including youth mental health, public health, youth civic participation, girls and women’s economic and social development, employment and anti-discrimination, on both national and international forums. She is a current Master of Research candidate at the Centre for Transforming Early Education and Child Health (TeEACH) at Western Sydney University, and is a graduate of the Macquarie University Global Leadership Program.
Her present advocacy work has included being a founding member of the African-Australian Youth Suicide Prevention Group, Director of Youth Leadership/Projects Officer at African Women Australia Inc., and a Youth Activist for Plan International Australia supporting their work on street and online harassment. Angelica co-authored a global youth-led report involving over 1000 girls and young women (from 99 countries) mapping out their visions for a more just and equitable post-pandemic world. She has also been an active youth leader with several youth and multicultural community organisations including MYAN NSW, Orygen, FECCA, and the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute. Angelica was a co-host on Orygen’s podcast series ‘Let’s Talk: Youth Mental Health, Culture, and Identity’, a resource aimed at increasing knowledge and capacity working the workforce to be youth and culturally responsive in mental health care.
In 2021, Angelica received the NSW Premier’s Multicultural Community Youth Medal (sponsored by the National Rugby League) in recognition of her youth wellbeing and gender advocacy, and was named as one of the United Nation’s 23 Young People Leading Resilient Recovery in the Decade of Action.
Hello! I’m Angelica Ojinnaka, your representative to take the issues you care most about to domestic and international forums.
Contact us
Need to contact Angelica, the Program or UN Youth Australia? Fill in a contact request form and our team will be back in touch with you!
We are excited to hear from you!
UN Youth Australia
UN Youth Australia is a national youth-led organisation that aims to educate and empower young Australians on global issues. All of the work that we do is rooted in the belief that young people can and do make a difference in their communities. We foster ideas and innovation, and we give young people the inspiration and support they need to create change.
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