An update on international youth participation from the UK perspective

YOUR INPUT WANTED: Three UK Young Ambassadors will be participating in the World Youth Congress in Turkey in August. This large-scale gathering will host over 1000 activists from all over the world to discuss the most important issues that affect young people today. Keenan, Jess and Ben want to know what you think – so please complete the survey   and help inform what they will say. For more information go to the Congress website.

Here is a round-up of the global spaces that young people from the UK have been active in over the last 3 months.

Representation

European Youth Forum, Council of Members meeting, - April, Belgium
As the National Youth Council of the UK we have a seat at the European Youth Forum where we share your views and campaigns with youth councils and international youth organisations across Europe. Liam Preston, BYC Trustee, attended the meeting in April and took part in the Votes @ 16 working group. He proposed a motion, which was passed, to establish a network and collaboration of organisations working towards Votes @ 16.

European Union Youth Conference – April, Spain
BYC, through the UK Young Ambassadors project, has been selected by the government as the UK’s ‘National Working Group’ for European youth participation. Our role is to ensure that young people from the UK get the opportunity to influence European policies on the issues that affect us all, such as employment and transport. Three Young Ambassadors attended the first meeting in April about youth employment and social inclusion, and they will now be leading UK-wide consultations and research to find out what you think about these issues. They will take these views to the next EU youth conference and input them into the policy discussions. Belium took over as host of the EU presidency in July and is already planning an extensive programme to address issues that affect young people.

Commonwealth Youth Programme, Regional Youth Meeting – March, Nigeria
BYC holds the position as the Regional Youth Caucus representative to the Commonwealth Youth Programme and in March two BYC representatives, Tom (outgoing rep) and Mark (incoming rep), attended the regional meeting in Nigeria. They advocated for more support for capacity building for youth participation and national youth councils and argued that the limited resources for funding around the world should be prioritised on education and HIV programmes.

My Summit – G8/20 Summits – June, Canada
BYC supported seven young people, including one UK Young Ambassador, to represent the views of young people in the UK at My Summit, a youth summit running in parallel to the G8 and G20 summits. Having carried out a consultation in the UK their task was to negotiate with young people from around the world to produce and present a shared youth vision to the world leaders, including David Cameron and Obama. They talked about poverty, climate change, health, and other big global issues and were invited to continue the discussions with David Cameron and the Chancellor, George Osborne personally over tea. For more information check out their blog and facebook page.

“The summits were an intense and incredibly insightful opportunity to learn about how negotiations are carried out at the highest level. I felt incredibly privileged to meet with our leader PM David Cameron as this provided a platform for us to voice the opinions of the UK Youth on issues important to the” Maherunesa

“My Summit provided the preparation and stimulus we all need to persist in our campaigns to make youth representation more inclusive and effective in global affairs.” Ewurasi

Global Youth Media Summit – June, Sweden
BYC supported the ‘UK Youth Media Council to represent the voice of young people at the World Summit on Children and Youth Media in Sweden in June. The group of five young people consulted with young people in the UK before the Summit and facilitated sessions with young people from all over the world at the event in Sweden to create a set of recommendations to present to delegates from the world’s leading media organisations.

Uma Akther, 18, a UK Youth Media Council member, said, “young people in the UK now have a clear voice advocating the best possible representation of young people’s amazing abilities - abilities that are often underrepresented in the media.”

Be Healthy, Be Yourself – June, Italy
Two UK Young Ambassadors, Ben and Tom, represented the UK at an event in Italy in June looking at ways of improving young people’s health and well being. You can see their short video report here

Youth and Migration Seminar, May, Spain
Mark Flynn, BYC Trustee, attended the European Seminar on youth and migration to discuss how we can better support young migrants in our work. It was organised by the Spanish Youth Council and focused on how to combat exclusion and marginalisation of young migrants in society, ways young migrants can participate in non-migrant networks, building bridges between different migrant networks and issues of equal rights and conditions in the work place.

Young leaders exchange on environment and healthy lifestyles – June, China
Two Young Ambassadors joined 85 other representatives from the UK to discuss young people’s responses to environmental issues and the impact on our lifestyles and health. They undertook a 10 day trip to different regions of China include inner Mongolia and major cities learning about water scarcity, urban and rural poverty, unemployment and the social care system. They hope to share their insights upon their return through their own networks and with their local authorities. Jaffer will be sharing his experience with the youth work sector in Blackburn and Ashley will be reporting back to his MP Simon Hughes in Southwark as part of a broader initiative on enhancing opportunities for those in foster care.

UN Forum, UNA UK – June, London
Young Ambassador alumni member, Scott Forbes, represented BYC at the annual UN forum in June organised by UNA–UK. They focused on nuclear non-proliferation, human rights, humanitarian affairs and gender equality with high-level speakers (including Hans Blix, the man who led the search for weapons of mass distruction in Iraq) leading the discussions. The event was well-attended and Scott will now be helping to inform our work with the UN.

Charlemagne Youth Prize – April, Germany
Young Ambassador alumni, Ben Bilverstone, participated with two MEPs as a judge for the UK submissions of the Charlemagne Youth Prize at the European Parliament office in London, which highlights and celebrates projects which enhance European cooperation. In March Ben took part in the award ceremony for the Prize in Aachen, Germany.

Policy and campaigns

Votes @ 16
Following our work at the European Youth Forum to push Votes @ 16 higher up the agenda, Helen Deakin, BYC’s campaigns and policy officer, attended the first Votes @ 16 working group meeting. We are sharing our experiences of the campaign with European partners and working together to impact on European policy and put pressure on our national government.

Youth employment and social inclusion
We are continuing our work to support Young Ambassadors to consult and work with young people on issues of employment and inclusion and to take these views to European policy meetings. This will include a call for an equal national minimum wage for young people.

Millennium Development Goals and international development
In September the world’s leaders will gather in New York to discuss progress on the Millennium Development Goals – the 8 UN-agreed goals to tackle global poverty and inequality. We are concerned that the voice of young people and the contribution that young people make to international development is not being recognised and we are working with members and partners to make sure young people are heard.

‘Are You With US?’ - Campaign for better media for young people
The UK Global Youth Media Council is following up no their work at the World Media Summit. They took all the responses from the consultations and discussions and worked together with groups of young people from all over the world to come up with six key issues to campaign on.
Please have a look and sign their petition (it takes just two minutes) - Are you with us?
UN advocacy
We believe that young people should have a voice in all decisions that affect them and on all issues that matter to them – and many of these decisions and discussions happen at the UN, for example on the economy, employment and climate change. We are campaigning to gain a seat at the UN for young people from the UK and Shahina Bahar, our International Representation Coordinator, is working with UK and European partners to support this work. She recently attended a meeting with UN youth delegates from other countries to learn from and share ideas with them

Support and resources

New UK Young Ambassadors website launching soon - www.ukya.org.uk. You can join our social networks, find out what we’re up to, contribute to discussions and consultations, and find useful resources and links.

BYC now offers training in:
- Global youth work – making connections between your work and the wider world
- International campaigns and advocacy