Alice wandering land for a cause

POVERTY will be something relegated to the history books if Bulli teenager Alice Partridge has her way.

Ms Partridge is one of the driven young activists selected to be a youth ambassador for the Make Poverty History - Zero Seven Roadtrip, an initiative aimed at raising awareness of poverty and spurring the government on in its response to the world's poor.

Currently an Events Management student at Wollongong TAFE, Ms Partridge completed her HSC last year at St Mary's Star of the Sea College in Wollongong.

She will now join hundreds of other passionate young ambassadors as they board buses from July 1-7 and endeavor to spread the Make Poverty History message throughout regional Australia.

The 19-year-old said her decision to be pro-active about global poverty had already earned her a lot of support from family and friends.

"All my friends are really excited about it and my parents are really proud of me as well, because there are a lot of things you can do to help in the world but to actually go around and do something about it is so much better," Ms Partridge said.

"I'm just so stoked about it, every time I think about it it's just so exciting."

Ms Partridge said today's young people were starting to recognize their own accountability when it came to global problems.

"I think to an extent we are starting to realise that it's going to be on our shoulders and everyone I know is trying to do everything they can to help," she said.

"I think just recently in the media and things like that it's started to come out more.

"I think the government is going to have to start listening to us."

One of the aims of the Zero Seven Road Trip is to call on the government to increase aid to 0.7 percent of budget by 2015.

Lending a hand on various stages of the road trip are a swathe of top Australian music acts such as Missy Higgins, Evermore, Little Birdy, Dallas Crane and many more, who will be playing at concerts on the different road trip routes.

There will also be a Face Up to Poverty petition asking people to show their support by having their photo (and name if they wish) put on a petition to back the cause.