Ariella Mangan and Jasmine Hayden are too young to know what it is like to drive a car, drink at a pub or even vote for the representatives who will make crucial decisions about their future.
But at 12 years old, they have already lived through the worst recorded flood in Australian history.
Over the course of a single weather event in late February, the girls lost their homes in northern New South Wales, their school, their church and all of their belongings.
Jasmine remembers being woken up in the early hours of the morning as floodwaters rose faster and higher than anyone had predicted.
"We had to jump over the balcony ... and my dad had to actually chuck our dog off the balcony to get into the boat," she said.
"As we were driving through [the floodwater on the boat], a kangaroo swam up to the boat but we couldn't put him in the boat so that was really, really sad.
"We saw other people yelling out for help to see if they can come and get picked up."
Ariella was also forced to evacuate her Woodburn home in a boat with only a handful of belongings.
"It was me and my sister, my dog and my guinea pig ... we were in the tinny and we left my mum and dad at my neighbour's house so I was quite worried about them," she said.
"I saw all the houses next to me underwater as well and it was just really sad to know that some people were still in their houses at that time as well."
Since then the girls, like thousands of others across the region, have been living and moving between temporary accommodation while they attend a makeshift school in the neighbouring town of Evans Head.
It will likely be a year or more before their school, St Joseph's Primary School in Woodburn, is either fully repaired or relocated to an alternative site.
So when they were offered the opportunity of a lifetime to ask a question on stage in front of a panel of United Nations and Red Cross representatives at a disaster risk reduction conference, they jumped at the chance.
They spoke about the loss of their homes, their schools and their community connections.
"We are often told by adults that our voice is important, our experience is valuable, that we can be the change that the future needs," they said.
"If this is true, how is our voice and experience going to be authentically and actively sought out and included when you are preparing for the disasters that we know are likely to come and impact our future?
"How are you going to empower us to be the change that the future needs?"
It was a poignant question met with applause from the audience at the United Nations Disaster Risk Reduction Asia Pacific Ministerial Conference in Brisbane in September.
While the question still lingers, the girls hope an answer might be forthcoming as they prepare to take part in an Australian Institution for Disaster Resilience webinar about the impact of floods on young people.
