Following Henry’s contribution to Swimming NSW's partnership with ReachOut Australia in 2020, Henry was offered to be a Youth Volunteer at ReachOut, which he accepted with open arms.

For the next two years, Henry helped promote ReachOut’s fundraising events such as Laps for Life and Make a Move, as a Youth Volunteer before being appointed as the first deaf Youth Ambassador for ReachOut in mid 2022.

Immediately, as Youth Ambassador, Henry was assigned on behalf of ReachOut to be a Youth Consultant for Meta in association with Project ROCKIT to figure out the future of the metaverse in the lives of Young People. More on this under previous experiences.

Henry attended the 2022 Premier’s annual volunteer reception and spoke to the Former Premier Dominic Perrottet about his experience as Youth Ambassador for ReachOut and the importance of youth mental health.

As part of Henry’s role as Youth Ambassador, he partakes in social media campaigns which you can find in Henry’s socials

Henry then went on to become a ReachOut Committee Member for a year before retiring all his ReachOut duties ahead of his UK move.

Henry is still drafted as an Online Volunteer if ReachOut ever needed his services.

Henry worked on the FIFA Women’s World Cup hosted by Australia & New Zealand as a Sustainability volunteer.

He was exposed to the grassroots empire that is embedded in the global footballing community. This is part of his education to understand grassroots volunteering as he aims to own a sporting empire in the future.

Part of his role was to help with crowd management, environment initiviates, accessibility & mobility help, rubbish management, event security and human rights.

Henry was part of one of the most successful sporting events in history and he enjoyed every moment of it.

After the Australia vs Denmark game, Henry flew off the next day to represent Australia at the World Deaf Swimming Championships as Team Captain.

Games Henry shifted in -

Group Stage Round of 16

AUS vs IRE - (1 - 0) COL vs KOR - (2 - 0)

FRA vs JAM - (0 - 0) ENG vs DEN - (1 - 0)

GER vs COL - (1 - 2) PAM vs FRA - (3 - 6)

Round of 16

HOL vs RSA - (2 - 0) AUS vs DEN - (2 - 0)

Henry was brought on The Embrace Collective after his outstanding contribution to body image and confidence during his time with the Swimming NSW Youth Advisory Panel.

Here, he was a vocal advocate on the panel about the ways clubs and Swimming NSW can address the issues in this topic. Henry led the dialogue at the 2023 Annual Swimming NSW YAP Camp where they recruit swimmers on the panel.

In an video interview at the Young Female Athlete Conference in Adelaide, South Australia, Henry spoke to 100 youth female athletes on the reasons why they should be empowered to demand a better sporting experience for young female for the present and the future.

He was also part of the feedback team that helped the Sports Masterclass aimed at providing a safe place in sports for everybody.

Henry became aware of Swim League when it was presented to the Swimming NSW Youth Advisory Panel. In late 2021, he took on his first role as Coaching Manager of Team Falcons and led the Junior Falcons to victory in the first matchday before the season was postponed due to the pandemic.

After the pandemic, Henry became the Team Owner of Team Rhinos with Team Falcons merged into the team following to the Swimming NSW borders of the Metro South East Region. As Team Owner, Henry looks after the administration of the Metro South East Region, working with clubs, committees, coaches, parents and swimmers to build a team ready to make a state championship bid. He held the first Gala Day at Gunyama Park Aquatic & Recreation Centre as a trial and preparation for the 2023 season learning the lane ropes along the way.

Henry helped one of four Metro North West teams as Coaching Manager at the 2022 Swimming NSW, JAARs & SAARs Events hosted by Swim League. He led the team to a respected joint 4th place and crushed expectations as the underdog of the region.v

In 2023, Henry was appointed Swim League Director of the Metropolitan Regions on behalf of Swimming NSW which includes four of Sydney metro regions, Metro North West, Metro North East, Metro South West, Metro South East. Combined, Henry has the largest collective of clubs in NSW under his administration, he aims to created a United Sydney in culture and diversity.

He had this role for a brief stint before Swim League changes their rules and Henry left Swim League.

Through his association on behalf ReachOut Australia as Youth Ambassador, Henry was appointed to be a Youth Consultant for Meta facilitated by Project ROCKIT.

The aim was to explore “the opportunities, risks, safety and privacy concerns, accessibility and inclusion factors, and formed recommendations for the development of the Metaverse.” - Project ROCKIT.

Throughout the roundtables, Henry became quite a vocal advocate for advocacy and education importance in the Metaverse explain how the two topics related to his own personal story; he was then invited to give a speech for the Meta report at the Meta HQ in Sydney, where he spoke about advocacy, education, mental health and a bit about himself.

Henry’s speech at the Meta HQ -

No one in the outside world told me I was amazing, so I told myself that I was… amazing.

As a deaf swimmer, I was and still am besieged with perceptions and judgements of my character by people who only know one thing about me, my disability… my deafness. A trait of mine that has been perceived… labelled as a weakness, not a strength, that makes me sensitive, not empowered. This makes me feel one thing and one thing only - shame.

Such a simple word for its meaning sinks deep.

This why I want to do the talking about my character myself.

Let me tell you two things that connect some of my lived experiences to opportunities that we can water and grow in the metaverse, the first one being advocacy.

What advocacy did for me is something that I truly value and will always encourage future young people to participate in. To as little as saying "no rubbish in the park" to as big as saying "no rubbish in the ocean," advocacy has the power to give an actionable voice to those who are quiet, who watch life happen, who simulate life, in lieu of living the life they want to have.

For me, advocacy helped me be active in mountainous times of doubt.

When I was suffering from depression, I used advocacy as a motivation to ensure future generations do not suffer what others fired at me. I strongly encourage everyone to advocate for something.

Advocacy is a regeneration of purpose, of meaning.

The second topic I wanted to talk about is education. Education is as important as water, without education, I cannot write, without education, I cannot talk, without education, I cannot swim, without water I cannot survive.

The access to education is and always will be a right not a privilege, the same goes for a glass of water.

Education enables the student to learn and adapt methods to contribute to society by helping build foundations and platforms like the metaverse to connect with each other, advocate with each other, and communicate with each other.

Prior to the roundtables, I never thought much of virtual reality, not to say I dismissed it, simply because the idea was marketed as a luxury rather than a necessity.

However, delving into the metaverse for the first time, was an experience that cannot be replicated.

Due to having a cochlear implant on my right ear, a hearing aid on my left, the pressure of water does limit my ability to go deep underwater. As a swimmer, a dream of mine was always to swim deep underwater with fishes and sharks.

It was one of the first things I did in virtual reality, already knowing how water flows on me, I meditate on the bottom of the ocean floor.

I am not going to lie, I cried.

In happy tears, with elevated emotion of accomplishment and satisfaction...

Henry helped co-create the Online Safety Youth Advisory Council drawing from his experience with mental health and how that affected his well-being. He attended workshops that were aimed to draw up a “Youth Code of Conduct” and to design a “Youth Cabinet” to help serve the needs of the youth.

On behalf of the Electorate of Sydney, Henry gave a speech addressing the NSW Parliament for the Children’s Week Parliament. He spoke about diversity and inclusion for people with disabilities, read Henry’s speech below.

Speech to the NSW Parliament

"The University of NSW Social Policy Research Centre found that “Australia has not made adequate progress achieving rights for people with disability since the early days of the disability rights movement in the 1960s”. For sixty years there has not been an acceptable level of change in recognising and supporting people with disabilities through the various obstacles presented to them. In the midst of Covid-19 we are seeing unprecedented change to the way that we live our lives. Whilst there have been immense challenges, there have also been creative and effective solutions to overcome them, proving that if we truly want to achieve an outcome we can, if we care about it enough. We need to use this thinking to help come up with meaningful solutions to help bridge inequality in our society, because until we do people with disabilities will always be excluded from helping Australia build its future."