Uluru Youth Dialogue Ambassadors to campaign for Indigenous Voice to Parliament

The 26-year-old was among some 30 young First Nations leaders to become an ambassador for the Uluru Youth Dialogue this month.

The youth-led campaign, guided by the Uluru Dialogue, has been equipping young leaders with the skills to advocate for the Voice in the lead-up to the referendum.

Mr Blackwell, who had already been campaigning for the proposal, was now preparing for another busy few months ahead.

"I'll be talking to a number of towns, town halls and community events from Canberra down to Wangaratta over the next couple of months," he said.

Mr Blackwell said a constitutionally enshrined Indigenous advisory body would "give us the power" to speak to the issues affecting First Nations Australians.

A research fellow in Indigenous diplomacy at the Australian National University, he said young Indigenous people in the ACT faced barriers to healthcare, housing and education.

"We still see some of the barriers a lot of Indigenous students face in completing high school and accessing higher education is a real problem, even in the ACT," he said.

"Even once they get to university, you see students really struggling sometimes to find their place in the higher education system or for them to see themselves reflected in that system."

A recent Productivity Commission report found that Australia was on track to meet only four of the 19 closing the gap targets.

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Mr Blackwell said young people were now pushing for change. He believed they had a vital role to play in the Voice campaign.

"Often in political campaigns, we don't hear enough from young people," he said.

"We bring our perspectives as young Indigenous people, we can speak to those communities and speak from our lived experiences."

Yuin woman Eliza Salvatori, who was also named Uluru Youth Dialogue Ambassador, echoed the sentiment.

"We all really have a lot of fire in us and motivation to go out and educate in our communities around what the Voice means and how it's going to work," she said.

Recent polling from the Australia Institute found that young people were "most likely to support the Voice", with 73 per cent of 18- to 29-year-olds surveyed saying they would vote "yes".

Ms Salvatori attributes that level of support to young people being more progressive and open-minded.

"Eighty-three per cent of First Nations people support the Voice," she said.

"I think young people are really open in their ways of thinking and are looking to the fact that the majority of First Nations people want this."

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