Busy big

Municipal director, Australian Sister Cities Association life member, youth worker, and mentor, Jennie Lee began her career teaching sport, drama and callisthenics at a private school.
By the nature of her work Jennie was involved with young people but could see wider needs for some of the youngsters about her.
She took up work in a State institution and began helping young offenders and perhaps this set the scene for a contribution to Australian youth on a large scale.
Jennie was born and grew up in Adelaide but her sights were set further afield and she went where her work would take her.
This meant a position with the Community Youth Support Scheme (CYSS) at Bendigo.
Through this work Jennie, being Jennie, was out on the streets among the young people in her community as a role model teaching comportance, comfort, and where needed a degree of discipline.
Those who know her would be aware that assertiveness and discipline would have also been applied where necessary.
She helped out of work young women develop personal wellbeing, and to raise their selfesteem and motivation.
Clearly Jennie could see a strong need and she was soon on a pathway that put her abounding energy into youth.
This has paid off for Jennie, the City of Casey, the Australian Sister Cities Association, and happily for young people throughout Australia.
During the early 1980s she was selected as part of a State Government delegation to Osaka in Japan, to discuss ideas on youth programs.
To this she contributed strongly and in turn brought much home.
She worked as a research officer for the Department of Youth, Sport and Recreation and later moved to Frankston where she worked with the Dandenong Westernport Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA).
Through the ‘80s it was evident, particularly in the City of Berwick, that the demographic wave was growing more intense.
Young families were moving in by the hundreds only to later become thousands and part of this was a large juvenile sector.
Forward thinkers were seeing a disconcerting development — what was to happen to all these young people in an environment that had few jobs for teenagers?
Among these planners was the young Jennie Lee.
She was reported as saying: “With its rapid population growth, young people in the City of Berwick don’t have the social venues that more established areas have.
“Just to go to a cinema, they need transport to get to Frankston or Glen Waverley.
“And so many kids come home from school and there is nobody home.
“In some cases they have to be taught how to get out and do things for themselves, but in this respect it is important that young people have a say in how things are done for them,” Jennie said.
How to deal with this emerging population was a challenge to planners and the record shows that even from early in her career in government, local government, and through the Australian Sister Cities Association, Jennie Lee was a leader among those planners.
Her work had not gone unnoticed and former Berwick mayor John Byron, who was also the Australian Sister Cities Association (ASCA), president asked Jennie to look at the establishment of a youth component for the national sister cities organisation.
She became national youth adviser for ASCA and did this with gusto.
Jennie travelled to interstate groups where she helped young people set up their own youth groups in one form or another, but with a sister cities base.
With her advice and encouragement they established a national youth conference conducted alongside the annual national ASCA conference.
Jennie was later elected to the national committee on which she served for several years.
Mr Byron began by asking her to set up a group in the City of Berwick and although this was a big ask, resulted in the formation of the Sister Cities Youth Ambassadors Berwick Australia (SCYABA).
She described this as a program run by young people for young people and it still operates as Casey Youth Ambassadors.
The group soon after it began won the Australian Sister Cities Association Best Youth Project Award.
Youth at ASCA became infectious and groups were quickly established all over Australia.
After 10 years as youth adviser Jennie handed the job over.
The youth group presented her with a photograph album of pictures taken during her decade of service as youth adviser and she was this year made a life member of the Australian Sister Cities Association.
During the early 1990s local government was thrown into turmoil with restructure of councils in Victoria, but while many senior officers lost their jobs, Jennie took on wider responsibility and became the director of community services for the new and growing City of Casey.
She continued her work for ASCA and it was one of her proteges, Kereni Abrahama, who took over the role of youth adviser and after Kereni the job went to another of the ambassadors’ group, Rebecca Scullion.
Jennie worked at developing closer ties with China and visited that country during her annual holidays with the view of setting up youth exchanges.
She recently resigned from the ASCA committee, but still maintains a keen interest in sister cities, with a loving eye on young people she sees moving forward through the pathways she established.
Her department at the City of Casey is bigger than many Victorian councils so it goes without saying that Jennie Lee has a full life.