This month has been exceptionally busy on the Youth Parliament front, on a local, regional and national level!
To begin with, throughout September and October, we had the task of distributing as many Make Your Mark Ballot Papers to the young people of Poole as we could.
Make Your Mark is the UK Youth Parliament’s annual ballot, which enables young people to vote on the topic which they feel is most important to them in today’s society from 15 broad ranging issues.
In Poole we collected over 2,300 ballot papers, which contributed to the UK’s overall turnout of over 470,000 votes.
The top 5 topics are to be debated in the House of Commons on the 15th on November by all of the UK’s Member’s of Youth Parliament including Jess.
We have also made significant progress in our local priority on stress.
We have had several meetings with CAMHS, who have supported us in the planning of the training workshop which we are running on 7th November for teachers and governors of Poole secondary schools on the issue of student stress.
Additionally, we created a survey on the issue of stress for young people to complete, so we could get their views on the issue and use this in our training workshop to make sure young people’s views were being heard by those who could make a difference.
We have also spoken to a variety of young people about the issue at schools, Poole Youth forum and Poole’s Youth Conference.
So young people’s opinions have been heard and noted and the workshop has been planned; now all we have left to do is the small task of delivering the workshop!
Recently, we also met one of our local MPs, Annette Brooke, to discuss UK Youth Parliament’s previous national campaign ’A Curriculum for life’ as well as tell her about our local work in the area.
From the meeting, Annette Brooke agreed to hold a couple of joint surgeries with us at the secondary schools in her constituency, in which young people can come and ask us any questions, let us know their views about our priorities and most importantly let us know of any issues they feel are important to young people and need to be addressed. At the end of this month we also have a meeting with another of our MPs; Robert Syms.
This month, Jess also attended a regional meeting at which there were several elections for various positions within UKYP; Jess was successful in running for the position of the South West’s PG (Procedures Group Member) and so is now the new member!
Also this month, I have been lucky enough to be asked to speak at Bournemouth University’s Women in Democracy day, to explain my role as part of UK Youth Parliament and what inspired me, as well as being part of a question time panel.
On 30th October, we both attended Poole’s annual youth conference, at which all young people were welcome and had the opportunity to get their voices heard, meet new people and shape the future. It was a great event and we got the opportunity to speak to lots of young people about what we do and hear their views.
As always, if you want to find out more about what we’re up to, like our Facebook page: Poole UKYP or follow us on twitter @PooleUKYP.
We look forward to updating you again next month, and if you have any questions or anything you’d like to tell us then please get in touch and send us a message on Facebook
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