Challenge Bandits by Sophia, Theo Alexii, Stephanie and Katie
- bopindustries
- Mar 25
- 5 min read
Founders: Sophia Baxter, Theo Williams, Alexii Doney, Stephanie Baxter and Katie Williams
School: Year 6, 7 & 9 Students from WA Scouts (Students Attend La Salle College, Guildford Grammar School, Governor Stirling Senior High School and Helena's Catholic Primary School)
Business Name: Challenge Bandits
Can You Tell Us About Your Team Initiative Or Project?
We choose activities that interest us, that we want to learn about, and can develop our personal skills. Skills can be anything from leadership and communication skills, cooking, overnight-treks, camping, emergency response, first aid, rock climbing, to Landcare or just getting out in community, exploring, meeting people, having fun and making a difference to someone’s life.
We get involved in Group-fundraising (to attend major events like Scout-Jamborees), community service projects (clean-up events, food donation, fundraising for charities to help sick kids and homeless people) raise awareness about issues impacting the environment (like litter and recycling and impact on native animals), and encourage others to participate in local community projects, or at home.
We are role models volunteering, mentoring, inspiring, educating others in our Group, at community and state-events, sharing our knowledge to upskill other youth, inspiring them to do their best, create their own projects and contribute to community.
What Was The Primary Goal Or Challenge Your Team Set Out To Achieve, And How Did You Approach It Collectively?
Together as a collective scout group we aimed to make our community a better place.
We chose projects to support our Group and community (fundraising, food drives, planting trees), providing youth opportunities to get involved in activities with community and organisations (Midland Meals, Starlight Children’s Foundation, Friends of the Western Swamp Tortoise), that they usually wouldn’t be able to do by themselves. Through our commitments to raising awareness, educating youth, fundraising, landcare and community service we have learned new things, upskilled our peers and made a difference to someone’s everyday life.
Sometimes we research our own project we are interested in (recycling, or raising awareness of the Western Swamp Tortoise, Australia’s most critically endangered reptile) and present our research to the team and develop ideas for the group to be involved. Other projects, we brainstorm together and work out who wants to lead the activity, and we assign tasks.
Can You Describe The Dynamics Within Your Team? How Did Each Team Member Combine Their Unique Strengths To Achieve Your Shared Goals?
Our team-members are different ages with varying skill levels. Some are siblings. Together we’ve work on being tolerant and supportive of each other’s ideas, show equality, respect and kindness to peers and mentors so that everyone can be included.
We’ve been in scouts together for many years (as joeys, cubs and scouts), and use our shared experiences, knowledge, skills and ideas to create projects and activities. We have some common goals (to help others) so it makes it easy to support one another and reach our targets (which can be developing skills, achieve our peak awards or upskilling our peers and each other).
Its challenging to keep joeys and cubs focussed and create activities for youth who have social and emotional difficulties, so we must be creative to adapt our activities for them. Sophia, Alexii and Katie: leaders, creative and encouraging. Steph and Theo: good at problem-solving and guiding youth-activities.
What Were Some Of The Most Significant Challenges Your Team Faced, And How Did You Overcome These As A Unit?
Some challenges are we go to:
•four different schools, are in different school years (6, 7 and 9)
•two different scout groups, meeting once weekly during term
and our Scout-section has been without a fully-trained adult-leader after the scouting system changed and after covid. Last year, some adult-leaders retired. Many Scouts left the group, so we lost skills and knowledge from the Scout-section.
The remaining leaders and mentors believed in us empowering us to become leaders, to continue our scouting journey. We were inspired to volunteer as youth-helpers with joeys and cubs sections, creating activities and upskilling them so the sections kept going and the Scout-Group didn’t close.
Our projects are in addition to schoolwork and after-school activities. Its challenging finding time to do projects and have time-out to relax.
We split up tasks between us, work on them in our own time and share the info at meetings.
Collaboration Is Key To Any Successful Team. How Did You Ensure Effective Communication And Cooperation Throughout Your Projects? We use plan-do-review process for our projects. We do research on projects, brainstorm together, draw on each other’s experience and life skills, listen to each other’s ideas.
We have pride in what we do.
Help everyone use their skills to do something. Help and support each other develop our personal skills. Limit ideas, summarise. Make sure everyone has a say. We choose ideas everyone agrees on.
How Did Your Team Measure The Success Of Your Initiatives, And What Outcomes Are You Most Proud Of? We continue to cleanup Bells Rapids for Clean-up Australia Day, are role-models and educate, inspire and mentor our peers.
We learned how to work with organisations to make a difference in community, inspiring others and raising awareness about:
•Australia’s critically endangered reptile, the Western Swamp tortoise and got youth involved in habitat restoration.
•Waste, how much packaging products have and to consider what you buy to reduce, reuse, recycle.
•Vulnerable people, and how organisations (Midland Meals, Starlight Children’s Foundation and Backpack Bed for the homeless) can help them.
We fundraised $3,875 for sick kids and $1,156 to buy Backpack Beds for Homeless to support the charities; the Joeys and Cubs want to do another fundraiser to help community.
We did a food-drive, prepared food for Midland Meals that was made into casseroles for people in our community. We’ve fundraised for Group activities and to attend the 2025-Scout Jamboree in Queensland
What Advice Would You Give To Other Teams Aiming To Make A Significant Impact? How Can They Cultivate The Same Level Of Collaboration And Success That Your Team Has Achieved?
Use your skills and experience to help others
Help everyone in your team to be involved - research before you do the activity
Share your knowledge in the community.
Follow a process of Plan–do–review
Show creativity - have pride in what you do
Listen to other kids, no matter how young or small they are as it helps them learn and get confident in trying things too - you can inspire and empower others by listening to then and letting them be part of the planning-do-review process
Don’t be afraid to ask mentors for support when you need to
Challenge Bandits participated in our Next Gen Awards 2024 program and were our one of our Top 10 for our WA Showcase Event. To find out more about the Next Gen Awards and how your projects and initiatives can be showcased head to: www.nextgenoftheyear.com
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