Maria Leebeek is the CEO of Gold Coast Youth Service (GCYS), a place-based organisation committed to helping young people build hopeful futures and a well-established partner of YFS.
With over 30 years of professional experience and both undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in social work and the Not-For-Profit sector, Maria’s passion speaks for itself.
“The inspiration for my career and education was about social justice, just trying to make the world a better place and create better futures for young people.”
“My sense of what is right came a little bit from my parents and where I come from, but my university degree really deepened and enhanced my understanding about what needed to be done to reestablish a sense of community and mateship.”
Maria’s unwavering passion, evident throughout her career, is mirrored in organisations like GYCS and YFS.
“Just as my motivations haven’t changed, neither have GCYS nor YFS. That is why we come together all the time because we’re both passion-driven organisations; we’re passionate about wanting to make change and about doing good work.”
Since stepping into her role as CEO at GCYS, Maria has developed a deep admiration and appreciation for the mutual understanding and relationship between the two organisations.
“As two organisations, we are very similarly aligned in our values. We’re both very place-orientated and dedicated to seeing positive outcomes in our places. We both recognise the importance of grassroots projects to do good for our local communities. That’s been the connection.”
“We’re joined at the hip in regard to how we want the world to be and what we ought to do make this a reality for people in our community.”
Throughout our interview, Maria could not stress enough the role of YFS’ and GCYS’ commitment to community in steadily achieving positive results for the people of their respective cities.
“What I love about YFS is its relationship to its community and the passion that comes from that. You are embedded in your community and that’s showing [in your outcomes]. It’s just so lovely to see that everybody knows you.”
“… [As a place-based organisation] your funding consistently builds on your community’s needs. That’s the strength of YFS and it provides continuity and lasting impact.”
Maria also appreciated, however, YFS’ and GCYS’ drive to consistently push the boundaries of a largely government funded sector through the advocacy space.
“Both our organisations are passionate about system reform and system advocacy to make that happen… We’re having a good crack at delivering systemic change.”
“YFS has always been very brave in talking about different approaches [to government], and that can be scary, particularly when you’re so grant dependent. But, at the end of the day, we’re committed to the people that we’re supporting.”
For Maria, the partnership between YFS and GCYS has, and continues to be, an important source of learning and inspiration. Such relationships are essential to persistently deliver productive outcomes for the community, and the organisations themselves.
“Our long-standing relationship allows for robust conversation [around social policy] … We can argue in a healthy way about how we want to progress our agendas and how to do that together.”
“If you want to be passionate in this work and not get lost, I think you constantly have to challenge yourself and learn, and YFS is a learning organisation.”
