The Parramatta LGA is home to some of Australia’s most diverse and dynamic young people and we recently invited them to share their big ideas at the recent TEDxSydney Youth event.

For the first time, TEDxSydney Youth came to Western Sydney and set up in the dynamic river City of Parramatta, hosting a major event at Riverside Theatres on 24 May. It featured many inspirational young speakers from Western Sydney and other parts of NSW, fuelled by ambition, under the theme of ‘Future Creators’. The theme pivots young people as not only inheriting the future — they’re creating it.

As part of this event, City of Parramatta held a Big Ideas Parramatta competition to find some incredible and motivated young people who have a great idea for the future of our City. 

We received so many amazing entries and from these, we selected six talented young people to come up on stage at our Big Ideas Parramatta activation at TEDxSydney Youth and pitch their big idea to the crowd in 60 seconds. The person whose pitch got the loudest applause won a $500 Westfield gift voucher. 

No matter where she’s been in the world, Tahera Nassrat has lived a life in service to others, even when that meant her own life was in danger. When the Taliban surged back to power in 1999, Tahera was working with the Medicine Sans Frontiers as a financial assistant and had to flee with little more than an ID card in under 24 hours. After a stint in Pakistan working with UNICEF, she returned to Afghanistan to help achieve gender equality for women living in oppression under the regime — this was at a time when only one-in-three women were making the difficult decision to go back. Within six months, Tahera set up female recruitment programs, built gyms for women in their offices and worked to ensure women’s rights were part of the constitution. 

When she eventually did move to Australia almost 19 years ago, she threw herself into reskilling and looking for work. Her rise has been meteoric. Tahera is now a tax accountant and business coach, owns her own home in Parramatta, and in 2019 founded the Afghan Peace Foundation helping refugees and immigrants lead self-sufficient lives. In 2022, she was invited to Parliament House to deliver a speech that she recites to us by heart:  “I’m a refugee girl who left the country with nothing, and today I’m standing in front of everyone at Parliament House as a businesswoman.” 

On empowering women

“For refugee girls from Afghanistan, the first thing that comes to mind is you're an Afghan woman, you can't do it. On the list of Afghan women, we have a lot of you cannot do. In Parramatta, I was able to take the ‘not’ out of the list and say I can do this because I get the support, I get the appreciation and acknowledgements.”

On what makes Parramatta feel like home

“It’s the multiculturalism and diversity for me. When you walk out you see it in the food, the community services, the breadth of businesses. It creates more opportunities for us all. That is what really gives you the sense of belonging. Diversity in Parramatta and Australia is at the heart of making me, and others like me, feel like they belong.  It really is the land of opportunity for people from all walks of life.”

On the evolving face of Parramatta

“If you want to know Parramatta, look at someone like me. I always encourage people to go and explore. We’re professional, independent, diverse, business and community-minded people.”

Her favourite time of day in the City

“My favorite time of the day is around lunchtime because when I leave the office I feel like I'm part of the whole, a free atmosphere. You look around, you feel proud that, you know, you're part of this community, you are part of Parramatta.”

Here’s a fact to be proud of: no matter who you are or where you come from, in Parramatta you can get every single meal, seven days a week — for free. It’s all part of an initiative Jenny Fuda (Oates) has spearheaded at Parramatta Mission, where she’s worked for the past nine years, serving 250 meals a day to the most vulnerable in our community.

As someone who was born and raised in Parramatta, with a daughter about to embark on a university education and career, Jenny works tirelessly to give back to her community to ensure everyone feels welcome and no one is left behind. While she’s watched the City rapidly grow and change in her lifetime, there’s one thing she loves that you’ll often struggle to find in other global cities: Parramatta’s got the conveniences of a bustling metropolis, but all the intimacy of a small town. To this day, she still walks down the street and says hello to the same familiar faces who have stuck around day in and day out.

Coming of age in the City

“Growing up Parramatta seemed like a big city to me, but now it's grown even bigger. The difference between now and then is just the busyness of it. It's vibrant, multicultural, there's great food — you can get pretty much everything you want.”

“Parramatta is a great community because as it's grown, it's just diversified. All the different cultures and people that come into Parramatta bring something new and make it richer overall. Working at Parramatta Mission, I've seen Parramatta grow and transform, and I love the fact that we're there for everybody in the community - as Parramatta grows, we're not leaving anyone behind because we're all part of that community."

On being part of the transformation of Parramatta

“A big part of what drives me is maintaining everyone’s place in the City as it grows, to make sure nobody is forgotten or made to feel invisible and to make sure all people still feel welcome and part of the community. Meals Plus is somewhere that people come and feel comfortable and feel at home right in the middle of Parramatta. Not many people know, but an interesting fact about Parramatta is that you can get every single meal, every single day of the week for free. I think that's a great demonstration of how all the community comes together to help everybody out.”

On finding family in the community

“One of the visitors to Meals Plus has kind of adopted me as her daughter. She's my second mum and we recently celebrated her birthday, so I bought her a cake and both of us had a bit of a teary moment. It's just nice to be part of an organisation that makes everybody feel like they're at home, have a family and they have somewhere to come.”

On opportunities for her daughter
“As a mum with a daughter who's about to leave school and embark on university and find a career, she can find all that close to home now. There’s a university here, and with all the businesses that are moving into Parramatta, it just gives her great opportunities to not have to go too far from home.”

When you first meet Lailei, it’s hard not to be impressed by his joyful optimism. You get the sense that he could move mountains (or algorithms) with his unbridled energy. Throughout his career, he’s worn many hats: virtual reality artist, technologist, passionate community educator, new dad with a COVID baby. Somewhere in the middle of it all, he managed to found the not-for-profit, Australian Immersive Education Academy (AIEA), with a mission to make emerging technologies accessible to all. Here, the Citizen of the Year Nominee for 2023, talks about his role in the community and the power of technology to transform lives.

On living in Parramatta since 2020

“I moved here at a crazy time before the lockdowns began. My ‘COVID baby’ was born in February 2020. It was a strange but wonderful time and now it really feels like home. You really feel respected as a human and taken care of. We respect diversity and we celebrate diversity  here in Parramatta, and that’s beautiful.”

On his role in the Parramatta community

“I consider myself a creative artist and educator and love bringing people together in this way. I’ve been doing community education in the field of emerging technologies since 2017, and I really see my role as more cause-focused than to do with making lots of money. My passion is working closely with the community — from school kids to young artists and the elderly — to help reduce the digital gap.”

On the potential of virtual reality

“It’s such a personal, immersive technology. It’s really about exploring the learning environment in a creative way — not just expressing yourself with your hands but your whole body. When you’re immersed you forget about time and space, and I love to share that with young artists.”

On being part of the transformation of Parramatta

“I’m really proud to see how it’s changed along the way with all the community facilities and programs that bring people together. It never shies away from what’s new and cutting edge. It feels like such a young, fast-changing community, and it’s been interesting to witness all this.”

What the future of this community holds

“A community is not only a group of unrelated people, it’s about belonging to all kinds of communities where we can meet people with similar interests. At the core, it’s where people and families can flourish and grow, and have a sense of hope and an abundance of opportunities available to them. As for the Parramatta community? It really has made my innovation dreams come true, and I’m excited to see what’s possible in the future for my kids, my family and the community with the help of Parramatta.”

His favourite time of day in the City

“Definitely Saturday afternoon when I have time to explore different places to eat and local exhibitions. I also love going for picnics at Lake Parramatta with my daughter.”

Fun and impressive fact. In 1999, David Borger became the youngest person to hold the office of Lord Mayor for the Parramatta City Council. He was just 30 at the time, and during his two terms, campaigned fiercely to help community groups provide services to those suffering from homelessness in the area. David’s since in politics for business, and as the Executive Director of Business Western Sydney remains a staunch advocate for the City he grew up in, with a vision to see Parramatta and wider Western Sydney sit among the great cities of the world.

On a career dedicated to Parramatta

“As Councillor, Mayor then MP, I was pleased to get the opportunity to put Western Sydney at the top of the agenda. At a certain stage, however, I felt I could achieve more outside of politics than in politics. In my role at the Business Chamber, we want to put investment into infrastructure and culture to shift the dial in Western Sydney. People in Western Sydney don’t need to be saved but would like to have good jobs available to them — it’s a big passion of mine to create a second Sydney City that the youth feel like they can remain in if that’s what they want. I think also, the government finally realised this is the place that it's at. This is the place where we need to put the investment and the cultural infrastructure and the community infrastructure to make our City work.”

How he’s seen it all change over the years

“It’s taken about 30 years to get here, it hasn’t been an overnight success. A lot of hard work in trying to attract passionate people. Since my youth, it’s gone from being a dusty ring road to what it is now. Parramatta is now a City that's moving very quickly, very ambitiously and very confidently trying to attract investment. You see that in places like Westmead, which is now the largest health innovation precinct in New South Wales. The fact that there are a thousand scientists working on Hawkesbury Road curing cancer in biotech medtech, I mean that's what's amazing about Parramatta and its ability to attract people in the future.”

On the Parramatta of the future

“Parramatta’s been an amazing magnet for talent, for people coming from all over the world and finding their home here. We really need to focus on keeping more of our young people here. In a sense, it’s a city looking forward to the future. In 10 years' time, it’s going to be different to what it is now. City’s never stand still, they change. Some people are scared of that, but I think that’s exciting.”

His favourite time of day in the City

“The early morning’s great when the City’s starting to come alive. I always remember the opening scene of Manhattan [laughs] and imagine myself strolling through my very own downtown with the opening theme song playing in the background.”