Oxley College Principal on Violet’s Achievement
Mr Scott Bedingfield, Principal of Oxley College, shared his perspective on Violet’s global recognition:
How did it feel to learn Violet won the Young Courage Award?
I was overjoyed, yet not surprised. Violet has always embodied the courage we champion at Oxley, and to see her courage honoured on a global stage fills me with pride. It’s a shining affirmation of our values. Show Courage, Be Kind, Seek Wisdom – come alive in our students and what they can achieve when they act with heart, clarity, and purpose.
How does Violet reflect Oxley College’s values?
At Oxley, we encourage our students to be courageous, creative, and compassionate citizens. Violet’s achievement is a perfect reflection of those values. She has shown the courage to challenge conventions, the creativity to build something meaningful for young people across the world, and the compassion to dedicate her energy to empowering others. This is precisely the type of impact we hope our students will make beyond the College gates.
What qualities in Violet stand out most to you as a leader and role model for other students?
Violet has an extraordinary ability to combine vision with action. Whether it’s advocating for services for regional women or reimagining how public speaking is taught. She brings passion and clarity to everything she does, and she is willing to take on challenges that many would shy away from.
Her achievements highlight her resilience and drive, including completing the Gold Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, becoming the NSW State Champion in the Plain English Speaking Award, and winning the Somerset Storyfest National Poetry Prize. Each milestone demonstrates not only her talent but also her commitment to hard work, perseverance and using her voice to make a difference.
What makes Violet such a powerful role model is that she channels her abilities into creating opportunities for others, showing that leadership is about service and impact, not recognition.
How do you think this recognition will inspire other Oxley students to pursue their own passions and initiatives?
Violet’s story shows our students that they don’t need to wait until adulthood to make a difference. By starting with an idea and following it through with persistence and creativity, she has had a global impact. I believe her recognition will encourage others at Oxley to take their own ideas seriously, to see obstacles as challenges to overcome and to recognise that their voices and actions matter in shaping the world.
Has the school supported Violet’s journey with Grow Your Voice in any particular way?
What is remarkable about Violet’s journey is that she built Grow Your Voice entirely on her own initiative – funding it herself, creating the content and maintaining it independently. What the school provided was the environment where she could refine her public speaking through competitions and receive encouragement from staff who recognised her talent and conviction. She built the project from the ground up.
What message would you like the community to take away from Violet’s achievement?
Violet’s achievement is a reminder that courage and creativity can create change, no matter your age or resources. Her work has given a voice to countless young people who might otherwise have remained silent. For our community, it is an invitation to believe in the capacity of young people, to listen to them and to support them as they pursue ideas that can make the world a better place. We as an Oxley Community couldn’t be prouder.
Amazing!
Violet FitzSimons Speaks About Her Journey
Congratulations, Violet! How did it feel to find out you were the first Australian to ever receive this award?
Beyond thrilled. At that moment, it seemed incomprehensible to have been awarded such an honour. But now, as I write to you from Stockholm, that fact is a truly tangible, magical thing. I’ve had the opportunity to meet the Swedish Foreign Affairs Minister, the Australian Ambassador to Sweden, the Swedish Ambassador to Australia and so many wonderful people involved in organising this event. It’s been an honour to represent my country.
What inspired you at 13 years old to start Grow Your Voice?
I was lucky enough to receive incredible coaching in spoken word after making it to the 2019 Debate State Championship. Receiving intensive weeklong workshops from the best of the best in Australia left me with a love of and a knowledge of public speaking that I quickly discovered was not shared by my peers when I entered high school in 2020.
At first, I felt like a bit of a weirdo that I was so passionate about something most people dreaded. Then I realised that public speaking is a vital skill, and it’s not good enough that our society is made to feel scared or unsure surrounding a skill that is essential to their lives. Everyone should be able to advocate for themselves, whether it’s in class, at work, or for their human rights, in a way that ensures that they are truly heard.
And so, Grow Your Voice was born. I poured all the knowledge I was lucky enough to garner into an online resource freely available to anyone, anywhere, at any time.
You’ve said public speaking can feel like being “thrown into the deep end.” How do you make it less scary for young people?
I break it down into small bite sized chunks. I believe the main problem with public speaking is that people view it as this mammoth, confusing thing. So, I get down to the nitty gritty. I ask students to think about an anecdote that could be a metaphor for their topic of choice before we even talk about structure, eye contact, or content.
There are so many plates to keep in the air when it comes to delivering a good speech, and there’s no use chucking them all at kids’ heads in hopes they’ll catch them. My resource just walks through every tiny step until public speaking isn’t chilling; it’s a checklist.
Can you share a story of a child or teen you’ve worked with whose confidence really blossomed?
I’ll never forget the first kid I mentored, who was really struggling at school. At the end of year 5, he’d garnered himself a reputation as a ‘trouble maker amongst his teachers. Under that persona, he was just a sweet young boy who really, really, wanted to be a student leader. To be elected, he needed to deliver a speech. His mother reached out to me to ask if I could help, and that experience truly drove me to back Grow Your Voice as a project of worth.
When I first sat down with him, he was standoffish, not quite knowing what he wanted to say or why. I diverted. I asked him about his favourite things. We got onto the topic of video games, cars, and then I said the magic words,
“What if we make your speech about cars?”
Suddenly, we were away. A good team is like a good car, all practical, hardworking parts that are unique but work in harmony to create an awesome car. Suddenly, this kid that supposedly didn’t like school, that supposedly wasn’t built for leadership, was overflowing with excitement, describing how he would lead his school to victory in the Grand Prix with the sportscar of student leadership. Helping kids like that blossom is what drives me to continue with Grow Your Voice even to this day.
How do you balance school, life, and leading a non-profit?
Honestly, I think that leading a non-profit is something that is much more doable in a person’s daily life than people realise. At the outset, when I started the site at 13, I spent around 100 hours creating lessons, designing layouts, creating videos, creating class tasks and so on, but now, the work is very manageable.
I try to keep on top of social media to manage engagement and answer any enquiries I may receive, but other than that, I let the site speak for itself. As an entity, the site has spent 5 years providing resources to people around the world, and as its owner, the upkeep and expansion work it requires has really been very minimal.
As a year 12 student, I find balancing pretty much anything with school immensely difficult, but I want to make it clear that anyone at any time can make what they love into a resource for others. I promise that once you launch, the upkeep is truly very manageable, so please don’t think this is something that you couldn’t do yourself. I encourage anyone reading this to start brainstorming, to start drawing up plans as to how they could turn their passion into a project to help others.
International Recognition and Experiences
The award ceremony took place on Raoul Wallenberg Day. What was it like to be honoured on such a meaningful date?
It was truly incredible. When I first found out I’d won the award, it was difficult to comprehend or contextualise just what it meant, what civil courage looks like, the impact Raoul truly had upon the world.
It was a deeply emotional day, and so incredibly moving to be surrounded by 12 of my new friends from across the world, celebrating each other, celebrating courage, and celebrating change.
You took part in Raoul’s Footsteps and met Sweden’s Foreign Minister. How did that experience feel?
It was beyond belief. Raoul’s Footsteps is such an incredible program, to attend workshops where he worked, to ride in the elevator where he received his mission to save so many is a feeling I don’t think any of us could ever put into words.
It’s important to do things like that. To see courage not as Tom Cruise clinging to the side of the plane, seeing an issue in the world, and then blowing it up so everything’s fine. Courage is small. Courage is ordinary. Courage is a Swedish man using paperwork to save lives, using his mind to change the world, even if no one noticed, if no one could thank him.
Meeting the foreign minister truly cemented this idea. She is a woman of such grace and fortitude, and her quiet confidence illustrates that true courage isn’t dramatic or loud, it’s quiet and consistent.
What was it like standing on stage in Stockholm as the first Australian to receive this award?
Truly surreal. Looking down that stage and seeing 12 young people who over the span of just a few days had become my closest friends was an experience I”ll never forget. To connect so immediately and so deeply with kids from across the planet and to stand as a united front in this incredible country that had welcomed us with open arms was incredible. I’m so proud of each and every one of them, to see them awarded for their incredible bravery, and to know that they’ll be out changing the world for years to come.
Looking Ahead
What’s your dream for Grow Your Voice in the next five years?
I’m always looking to expand, and after I graduate high school, I will be moving to more in-person experiences. I’m so excited to begin public talks and seminars at schools, alongside one on one tutoring and digital workshops.
If there’s anything my trip to Sweden taught me, it’s that human connection is everything and truly getting to know and talk to people allows you to learn at a level beyond any other. The site will continue to function as a free resource, and if all goes to plan I’ll be adding even more to its catalogue soon, but I’m excited to step into new avenues of speech education in person.
What advice would you give other young people who want to make a difference but feel too small to start?
You can never, ever be too young to make a difference. As I said before, courage isn’t big, or loud, or cool, or even something that other people will notice. It can be something tiny, like writing a letter a week to a pen-pal in a retirement home, or baking cookies to raise money for a charity of your choice. You can do that sort of thing at the age of six, and you can change someone’s life before you can ride a bike.
Right now, think of what you love. Why? What does it offer you? Could you make it more accessible to others, give them the tools to love it like you do? If it’s fitness, you could create an online program for young people interested in working out, a 14-day step-by-step to get people into fitness. After which, they could stay in your community, sharing tips, and connecting with others. You could combat the youth mental health and loneliness crisis by pressing publish on a website about something you love.
It could be makeup, empowering people to control their image in professional settings.
It could be science, sharing how you study and how to make the subject more approachable.
It could be philosophy, putting together an online forum that poses difficult questions and publishes answers to incite conversation.
There is a world so much bigger than Oxley, and it’s waiting for your innovation. Courage doesn’t have to be big and loud. It’s quiet. It’s consistent. It’s pressing publish. It’s wanting others to have access to what you love.
You’re not too young. You’ve got the resources available to you; all you need is the idea and the drive. If you launch a website in a month’s time, by the time you’re my age, you could be nominated for this award, win, and be flown to Sweden.
If I can do it, you can too.
Brilliant! Well done Violet!
You really are a superstar and us Highlanders are lucky to have you!