Empower U holds a special place in Dale Beaumont’s story because it was the very first organisation he helped create.
In 2001, at just 19 years old, Dale teamed up with his high school friend Brent Williams. Both were concerned that young people were entering adulthood without being taught many of the practical life skills that could help them build confidence, make better decisions and create a positive future. Personal development programs existed for adults, but very little had been created specifically for teenagers and young adults.
Together, they set out to change that.
Their first Empower U program started small, with only a handful of young people in the room. But the idea struck a chord. The program focused on the things Dale and Brent believed young people desperately needed but were rarely taught at school: goal setting, communication, leadership, emotional intelligence, money management, career skills, relationships, self-belief and personal responsibility.
From those humble beginnings, Empower U grew quickly. By 2003, the program was expanding internationally into markets including Singapore and Malaysia, and within its early years it had reached young people across Australia and several countries throughout Asia and the Pacific.
In 2007, as Dale moved on to build the next chapter of his entrepreneurial career, he stepped back from the day-to-day running of Empower U and handed the reins to Brent. Brent continued building the organisation and has remained the driving force behind the program ever since.
What makes the story particularly meaningful to Dale is that Empower U never disappeared when he moved on. It kept growing, evolving and helping generation after generation of young people.
Today, Empower U has been operating for 25 years and more than 40,000 young people across six countries have experienced its programs. It continues to help teenagers and young adults develop practical life skills, confidence, resilience, stronger communication and a clearer sense of direction for their future.
The impact is difficult to measure purely in numbers. Over the years, young people and parents have shared stories of increased confidence, stronger family relationships, greater motivation and completely different outlooks on life. Graduates regularly describe Empower U as an experience that helped them understand themselves better and see possibilities for their future they had not seen before.
Dale no longer has any financial involvement in Empower U, but he remains one of its biggest supporters. He has seen firsthand what can happen when a young person is given the right ideas, tools and encouragement at the right stage of their life, and he knows that lessons learned at 15, 16 or 17 can continue paying dividends for decades.
That is why Empower U remains a cause Dale is deeply proud to support. What started as an idea between two teenage friends in 2001 has become a 25-year legacy that continues to give young people practical skills, greater belief in themselves and the confidence to take more control of where their life goes next.
