Conference time!
Posted at October 17th, 2008 by Sean
Hello all! (Well, I’m most probably speaking to about 3 people, here…)
As you should know, if you’ve been keeping yourselves up to date with the blog, Young Advisors from the borough were recently charged with delivering this years Youth Conference. Which we did! Somewhat amazingly, I might add.
Yesterday (16th October) saw ten students from each school in Waltham Forest being invited to Waltham Forest Assembly Hall to take part in workshops themed around local democracy and participation. That’s well over 130 students, by the way. More shocking, however, is that for all intents and purposes, it was down to 6 Young Advisors to run workshops, make sure everyone was where they were supposed to be, host the day, keep to time, and on top of all that, to still retain the highest standards of education, safety and fun.
Well, I think it’s testament to the whole team that a) No ambulances were called, b) No-one decided to take an “informal break” from the conference, c) We got almost unanimous “Outstanding” feedback, with the remainder being “good” or “okay” and, d) We all enjoyed the day as well. So, really, a huge huge huge congratulations to all of yesterday’s team, and everyone else who made it happen.
Another reason that yesterday was so important, was because it marked the launch of the boroughs new Children’s Commissioner, Ann Tennant. She was interviewed and recruited by young people, a proportion of whom were Young Advisors – to this end, Young Advisors will be the interim steering commitee for Ann for the first year of her posting. Ann’s role will essentially be to help young people understand their rights, but equally importantly, help young people implement those rights. This includes advocating for young people and also promoting their image in the media, and in turn, society.
At the forefront of the latter aim is the I make a difference campaign, which was originally Georgia’s idea, and has been adapted and developed by the steering committee and Ann. I make a difference will be a campaign aimed at rewarding young people for all the great things they do, not just in school, but anywhere and everywhere young people are doing something to help their community. Young people can be nominated by anyone, be it parent, priest, teacher, youth worker, as long as young people are recognised for the things that really and truley deserve recognition, it really doesn’t matter. The nomination and award procedure will be backed up by a high profile media campaign, and the awards on July 10th 2009 will attain national and regional media coverage.
Ann can be reached at Childrens.Commissioner@walthamforest.gov.uk.
Lastly, our “special” embargoed piece of news that we couldn’t tell you last time…
Now, I really didn’t want to be the one to blow my own trumpet, but asking other people to write this at 8 on a Friday night seemed somewhat unreasonable. Anyway, little old me managed to get an extension to my job with Young Advisors – I’m now on Hazel Blear’s personal panel of Young Advisors, to advise her on policies for the Department for Communities and Local Government. The full CLG press release can be seen here.
Anyway, yay, go me, etc. It will be rather interesting, and I’ll keep you all updated!
That’s it for me, tonight,
over and out :]
Sean.
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