Hobsons Bay Youth Voice Committee member Vu Long Tran is encouraging others to speak out after attending the Asia Pacific Regional Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect.

"In terms of child abuse and neglect, I didn't realise how profound it is in the community," he said.

"One of the statistics they quoted was that one in 10 people have been affected by child abuse.

"So if you look at, say, a class, or if I look at my group of friends, potentially one in 10 of them have been abused or neglected in some way."

Vu said the conference had inspired him to link up with groups and young people through online initiatives such as the YOUth can Facebook

program.

"We want to come together and promote this issue post-conference," Vu said. "We plan on using Facebook to encourage other people just to keep joining and joining and raising that awareness - like Make Poverty History.

"One of the things we can do as a community is to make sure those isolated and with low socio-economic backgrounds feel more involved in the community, because it's the informal services rather than the formal services that seem to have a better effect on preventing these issues from arising in the first place.

"People often don't find it easy to talk to, I guess, the authorities; it's like an 'us and them' sort of thing.

"But when you have informal services, they feel more encouraged and they can open themselves up and talk to their peers about the issue."

Vu said individual young people could make a difference. "Although their efforts might be small initially, if you work together with other young people and share your views, then you can make a positive change to the world.

"I term it 'assertive communication'. [Just like] people can't read other people's minds, the government can't read young people's minds or the community's mind. So one way of young people getting the message to the government is actually just speaking out, just getting your voice out.

"You can make a difference."

Read Vu's blog at http://vulongtran.blogspot.com/20 09/11/apccanconference.html