Just no rest for Rachel
RACHEL Cook might be one of Townsville’s busiest mums.
Balancing her roles as president of The Youth Network NQ Inc and the community development officer at The Village in Oonoonba plus a sudden boom in an on- the- side macrame and crochet business along with a 12year- old son might sound daunting to some, but Ms Cook said she enjoyed every minute.
“I have a bizarre brain that can do a lot of things at once, it just comes to me,” she said. “I really enjoy what I do; finding ways to connect young people into bigger opportunities and creating grassroots opportunities to me is really important.
“It’s so exciting when you see young people achieve in ways they didn’t think they could.”
Ms Cook has volunteered as president of The Youth Network for 14 of the organisation’s 20 years, and does all the project management and coordination for the not- for- profit service which provides a voice for young people and the issues they face.
“One of the biggest issues is a lack of youth engagement activities,” she said. “There’s all the standard stuff, like sporting teams, but outside of that there’s really nothing.
“That’s where we started deliver- ing live music events for people to attend and perform at, and art is another big one; graffiti is our ongoing thing, and skateboarding.”
Ms Cook said the network used the legal graffiti walls at the Murray Skate Park to encourage budding artists to express themselves without damaging property, and also used the space to engage with young skaters of all abilities.
“We started out just holding annual competitions, now we hold weekly lessons,” she said.
“One of our skate coaches is ( ranked) eighth in Australia, and we’ve got a few kids going off to the state titles next week.”
Ms Cook said the network involved local youth in events like National Youth Week, Palm Creek Folk Festival, Groovin The Moo and more.
She said while the main aim was to engage Townsville’s young people broadly, the events were a family affair.
Her son, a budding musician, performs at many of the network’s live music events and her husband pitches in as a sound engineer.
“My husband is very involved, I couldn’t do any of it without him,” she said. “It’s very much a family thing.”
Ms Cook said she had no plans to slow down.
“I’m not going anywhere anytime soon,” she said.