Wollongong’s 2025 Young Citizen of the Year is Jack Brown, the director of mental health and suicide prevention charity Talk2MeBro.
“I’ve been part of Talk2MeBro since it first started in 2018,” Jack says.
“I lost my cousin, who was like a brother to me, to suicide that year. From there, his amazing wife Kristy created the slogan ‘Talk to me bro’.
“She took a step back about four or five years ago and since it started, we’ve built programs and workshops that we take to schools and workplaces. Now we’ve reached over 85,000 people.
“What started in Wollongong has gone on to be all over Australia.”
While the charity continues to raise mental health awareness, with the aim of ending suicide in Australia, Jack is in his third year studying psychology at UOW after serving in the army for 10 years. He works full time at Open Arms, providing support for veterans.
“I saw that there was a gap," Jack says of his Talk2MeBro advocacy. "I didn’t feel like there was much for guys… like a community where you can just come down and chat.
“A lot of that sort of thing was centred around going to the pub and stuff, which I can still get around, but there was just nothing positive.
“So we started a group on Friday mornings for everyone to come down to the beach and have a swim and a coffee. Just a place to check in and have a conversation about where you’re at with just a couple of dudes.”
Jack’s meet-ups have grown from a couple of men to upwards of 30 men who regularly attend Wollongong groups, with women-led women’s groups available too. Talk2MeBro groups have formed country-wide, with meet-ups in Newcastle, Canberra, south-west Sydney and central NSW.
“We run community catch-ups which are open to everybody in the community – guys, girls or anyone. We run workshops and go into schools, workplaces, gyms, and educate people around how to have tough conversations and how to take care of ourselves.
“We’re trying to empower and educate, which is going to help people in the future when they might come across someone who is struggling, or themselves. We try to be the prevention rather than the cure – the pre-vention instead of the post-vention.”
Jack – who wasn't able to attend the City of Wollongong Awards ceremony on February 6, so his mum accepted on his behalf – is humbled to be Wollongong’s Young Citizen of the Year.
“Even though it is nice to be recognised, I don’t think you should do stuff for recognition,” Jack says.
“The organisation was started with the idea that we would be happy if we helped one person or a thousand, and we’ve done that and we’ll continue our mission to help people, learn from our mistakes and get better as we keep getting bigger.”
Talk2MeBro has five fundraising galas planned for 2025, with one in Wollongong on September 20. This year, Talk2MeBro will be sponsored by the Illawarra Hawks and the Illawarra Dragons.
“Funding is something we’re desperately needing because of how many communities we’re in now. We’re completely community funded as an organisation, we’re not government funded,” Jack says.
“All of our community events are free, you don’t pay for anything. We’ve done that because a lot of times, financial hardship goes hand in hand with suicide. So we wanted to mitigate that by having everything be free. You can be struggling and come along, you don't need to have any prerequisites, just come along to an event and you can get the support that is needed.
“The way that people can support us is when we have our fundraisers, come along. Whether you want to sponsor us or buy a ticket to one of our galas, or share our stuff on socials, it’s all appreciated and it helps us out.”
Find out more about Talk2MeBro online at talk2mebro.org.au
