evidence

What do we do?

For over 10 years we have brought young people together from across the North West of England to meet, discuss youth led issues and campaign and support each other.

Contact: Lesley Dixon at l.dixon@youthfocusnw.org.uk

The place is called:

North West England

Date:

10.06.2010

Ongoing

Link to website:

https://linktr.ee/youthfocusnew

• advice

  Tell us your advice on doing participation activities.

  The project is youth led, so this means a group of elected young people plan and deliver the project. The ideas come from young people about the topics and they are topics that are important to them. The group of elected young people, usually around 12 young people, come together weekly to plan these meetings. The time spent together building them as a team seems to work well and we find their individual strengths and play to that.  For example some are naturally more confident to delivery sessions than others and don't need a lot of support and some are naturally better with planning, so we try to make sure they are comfortable in their roles. The steering group this year have been especially proactive in ensuring that the meeting and communications are inclusive.  This has involved challenging the use of only white guest speakers at times and ensuring the guest speakers are from diverse backgrounds.

• impact

  What did you do to try to achieve change?

  Each session is different and themed around a different topic.  As a result of the sessions we now produce a follow up guide with links and resources for young people to keep using and help develop their skills and awareness. They also share these with schools and colleges for others to use. The group pick really current topics, like public street harassment, and explore what this means and how young people can educate themselves. The group usually has a call to action: this time, it was how to write to their MP (member of parliament) to ask them to consider the topic. Other people help by attending the meetings, sharing on social media and helping raise the profile of the issue. Recently we heard from a charity that highlights the work of Nelson Mandela and the young people committed to doing something new and different for 67 minutes as a legacy piece.