We had a young person from a regional community come in and do PLP work experience. We asked him to write a story about an issue that affects his life. Here's his story!
**Ideas, words and memes in this piece were created by Matt, a student on PLP Work Experience at YACSA**
There are many good things about being a young person in a regional area such as the beautiful scenery, the friendly community, the amazing wildlife, the peaceful environment and the sense of security.
But here are five struggles that young people can face when living in a regional community.
1. ENTERTAINMENT IS HARD TO COME BY IN REGIONAL COMMUNITIES
This makes it difficult to have fun in your spare time. The few places of entertainment are usually in the more populated areas meaning that fun trips require a lot of preparation and planning.
Not to mention that if you are young and don’t have your license and your parents aren’t willing to drive you anywhere, there is no public transport outside of school.
This sucks because you can’t just decide to go out and explore.
2. SHOPPING IS A LARGE INCONVENIENCE
Whether it's going to a supermarket to get household supplies, or groceries, or going shopping for fashion - it's extremely difficult to buy things on short notice. And sometimes the shops don’t even have the things that you need.
Shopping in regional areas is definitely challenging.
3. LACK OF POPULATION!
This means lack of establishments. This also makes it difficult because the small population in regional areas still require jobs - but the the demand for jobs is incredibly high.
With no jobs for these people to go to, it makes living really hard - driving many people to leave regional areas to find jobs.
But this also means it's important to have the right connections. It's all about "who you know".
4. RUMOURS. ARE. EVERYWHERE.
In regional areas rumours and secrets spread really quickly due the smaller populations, so you always have to be careful what you say and who to.
5. NOTHING IS 24 HOUR!
People on the mainland won't understand this, but if you don't make it to the shops in time - you go starving because there's no servo and no Uber Eats. There's nothing.
What are your opinions on regional living? Anything I missed? Anything you don’t agree with me on?
**Note from YACSA - if you live in a regional or rural area, click the link below and tell us what other struggles exist. We might even add them to this story!**
