Youth worker has the Wright stuff

Dani Wright, Western Australia’s LGBTI-specific youth coordinator, received the Most Outstanding Youth Worker Award at the WA Youth Awards last night.

Wright is the coordinator at the Freedom Centre, WA’s only gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and intersex-specific youth service.

She is the first person from the Freedom Centre to win that particular award and marks the third statewide accolade awarded to the Freedom Centre and its staff.

She told the Star Observer it was “really good” to be recognised for her work and she was “abolutely grateful”.

However, she said she was disappointed there was no mention of young LGBTI people in the event’s program.

“I was a bit disappointed that my blurb in the program didn’t mention anything about LGBTIQ people despite the fact that’s obviously the group of people I’ve worked with and gotten the award for working with,” she said.

“So in the actual program, it said ‘the Freedom Centre’ but it didn’t say specifically who that service was for.

“It’s really nice to get the recognition for all my work but at the same time it feels like it wasn’t properly recognised.”

Wright will not qualify for WA Young Person of the Year due to age limits.

But she said the award would help promote the Freedom Centre and the work it was doing for the community.

“I’m just so lucky to be a part of that and both benefit from it and give to it,” she said.

“I’m certainly not the only impressive person who’s come out of the Freedom Centre and there are plenty who were there last night and part of the organising of the awards and YACWA [Youth Affairs Council of WA] staff and board members, many [of whom] are ex-volunteers or current volunteers and people who have been empowered.”

Wright first volunteered at the Freedom Centre in 2005 and became the coordinator in 2007.

Judges also commended her for her work as a board member for the National LGBTI Health Alliance and Gay and Lesbian Community Services and other initiatives.

The WA Youth Awards recognise achievements in eight categories including the arts, education and sports.

Photo courtesy of One Community.