Young Champions Gathering 2025
The first global Young Champions Gathering was held in Garramilla/Darwin on Monday, 25 August 2025 at the Darwin Convention Centre, as part of PUliiMA- Indigenous Languages and Technology Conference.
One hundred Young Champions from around Australia and the world, all working on language revitalisation, came together on Larrakia Country to share cultural knowledge, passion and future aspirations for their languages. Topics covered throughout the day were relevant to the future needs of the languages network and the work the Young Champions undertake every day in the languages space.
Workshops and presentations showcased some of the outstanding work being done by the Young Champions network and included best-practice examples of community approaches to language revitalisation. Topics covered included technology for language work, caring for language materials, creating language videos using phones, podcasting, social media tips and tricks and immersion language learning using the Indigenous Language Fluency Transfer System. Deadly presentations from Vanessa Farrelly (Pertame School), the New South Wales Next Gen Network, Gari Tudor-Smith (Gangulu) and Jayden Kitchener-Waters (Gamiliaraay) offered new perspectives and inspiration.
Our Young Champions also had an opportunity to participate in a group consultation session with First Languages Australia Sector Strengthening staff which allowed for the Young Champions voices to be heard on what the future needs of the language network are.
Feedback from attendees reflected on the opportunity to gather:
‘A favourite part was being with other young leaders and building strength by talking about our languages.’
‘The opportunity to be invited and share in others Cultural backgrounds was great, i enjoyed the sharing of culture and knowledge from mob all over Australia and meeting many amazing, strong and inspirational people on my own language journey.’
‘It was great to hear from Young Champions about the work they are doing in their communities.’
To find out more about First Languages Australia’s Young Champions program, head to:
Young Champions — First Languages Australia
More information on Warra: Indigenous Languages Youth Forum can be found here:
Image above and top: Attendees of the 2025 Young Champions Gathering at Garramilla/Darwin, held during PULiiMA Indigenous Language and Technology Conference.
