00:02Kieran Lonergan remembers how he felt when he was growing up.
00:06I felt like when I was younger I constantly had to have my guard up and I couldn't really express
00:10who I truly was.
00:11Which when you're doing that you can only just imagine what a young person is going to resort to.
00:17Now at 26 he expresses himself through hip-hop.
00:21Loud noise and dark nights, no peace, no rhyme.
00:24There was often times I'd start writing music and then all of a sudden there's, you know, quite heavy experiences
00:29that had happened to me when I was younger that would come out in the lyrics.
00:32And he's helping other young people do the same.
00:37It helps me express how I feel, like, so people can understand without me having to actually, like, talk to
00:45them.
00:45It just helps me forget about a lot of things, bad things and just, like, makes me feel better because
00:52I'm around the people that I know and that I respect.
00:56Arts Tasmania has funded free fortnightly hip-hop writing workshops in Hobart for people aged 12 to 25.
01:05To give young people a voice, that's the biggest purpose.
01:09Experts say projects like this can be life-changing for some young people.
01:14Giving them that sense of belonging, having positive relationships, mentors, people who they can relate to and who can understand
01:24where they're coming from.
01:26They're often not heard, they're disregarded.
01:28That's our future generation.
01:30We really need to invest time and care and love into these young people because they're going to be the
01:36ones that grow up and create our future.
01:44So, we're not going to be the ones that we understand and create our future generation.
01:44This is how we can understand, why we can understand differently, because they can understand the students.
