At least, it’s the way Armidale High School student Caitlin Schuman is organising her YMCA Youth Parliament Committee.

The Year 10 student will represent the region as the Minister for Rural and Regional Affairs in the chambers at State Parliament House in Sydney this weekend.

“The topic that we’ve chosen this year is job growth,” Caitlin said.

“So our idea is to provide government subsidies and incentives for businesses and companies that move from big cities, metropolitan areas to rural Australia.”

This is her third year attending the program, and she went to a training camp in July earlier this year.

In her committee is fellow classmate Jesse Streeting and Gemma Weguelin from Uralla Central School.

“We’re going to try and increase the population in rural and regional areas – because it’s decreasing quite a lot, so just trying to build that up,” Caitlin said.

In a Facebook group, the youth parliamentarians talked about the issues they face in their areas, and population growth seemed to crop up for each.

“The reason the population is decreasing is because people grow up and there’s nothing to move on to, so they move to the cities because that’s where all the jobs are,” Caitlin said.

“If we get jobs into smaller rural areas, we’ll have a bigger population and be able to get people to stay in town.”

Caitlin said she became involved in Youth Parliament because she felt she could make a difference in her community.

“Young people are the ones that are going to really change things in the future,” she said.

“So there’s no point sitting around doing nothing and then complaining about it later, we should do something now.

“If there’s a problem or something you’re really passionate about you can speak about what you think is right and what you believe in.”

At the end of the sitting week, legislation will be presented to NSW MP’s.