cardiff youth council – Cardiff Youth Council

Young people take part in Paris 2024 Olympic Exchange!

August 28, 2024September 11, 2024Cardiff Youth Council

Nantes 2024 Exchange Programme 20-27th July 2024

Cardiff Youth Council and Cardiff Youth Service took part in a cultural exchange programme bringing together young people from twin cities in France, Germany and Wales during July this year.

The week-long exchange, which was funded through the Taith programme with support from International Links (Global) Ltd., was filled with fun activities, excursions into the City of Nantes, tours and visits to historical sites such as the museum of the machines. The group also attended a football match, between Spain and Japan, as part of the Paris Olympic Games 2024. Each evening a cultural exchange took place where countries could share music, pop culture and sport from their respective nations.

The project gave young people from Cardiff an opportunity to take part in intercultural celebrations with other young people from Nantes and other countries. The focus of this exchange was outdoor education activities, active citizenship and health and wellbeing. This is also part of wider milestones for the city this year in celebrating 60 years of twinning between Nantes and Cardiff.

Through the exchange young people have had the opportunities to broaden their horizons, experience new ways of life, bring back lessons to share with people at home, but also to bond as a group of young people from their own nation learning things about themselves and their own abilities. They have built strong friendships and as part of their responsibilities they were to document their trip which they are currently editing to share with other young people in Cardiff very soon!

Universal Children’s Day

November 20, 2021November 19, 2021Cardiff Youth Council

World Children’s Day started way back in 1954 as “Universal Children’s Day” and is celebrated on 20 November each year to promote international togetherness, awareness among children worldwide, and improving children’s welfare.

Since 1990, World Children’s Day also marks the anniversary of the date that the UN General Assembly adopted both the Declaration and the Convention on children’s rights. We use this day to celebrate the development of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and improving the lives of young people right across the world.

Cardiff Youth Council want to make you more aware of the impact and significance of these days and how the UNCRC has improved the lives of children and young people across the world.

The World is not perfect…but the welfare for young people right across the world has improved. The amount of young people feeling safe has improved. The amount of provision and access to youth services has improved. Most importantly “Children and young people have a voice and a choice in decisions that affect them” – (Article 12 UNCRC).

There is still more that can be done. There are always ways to improve and reach more young people improving their lives and providing more opportunities. Today we celebrate all our achievements and the developments towards a brighter future for all children and young people and we ask you to take one small step in reaching that goal. Lets all raise awareness of Universal Children’s Day.

Kyle: Cardiff Youth Council Member

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The Votes are in… CYC Elections

August 11, 2017Cardiff Youth Council

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AND THE VOTES ARE IN…..
CYC have been busy electing 4 members to significant posts in the organisation. Firstly we thanked the 4 CYC members who were stepping down. CYC had a great year and a lot of this was down to the leadership and commitment from those folks who were successful in last years election.

Our new Chair is Stephanie Ezeadum (17), she was MYP last year and is studying for her A levels at Cathedral School.

C Y C ELECTIONS
Our new Vice Chair is Ed Jones (16) a student at Cardiff High and a member of CYC for 2 years. Ed said ‘I am passionate about young people having their voice

heard and look forward to representing the views of young people over the next year!’ Our 2 new elected Members of Youth Parliament for Cardiff are David Abadir (17) and Tabitha Balogun (17). David told CYC members ‘Thank you for voting for me and I will ensure I will work hard to represent Cardiff not only in the House of Commons but throughout the year here in the constituency’

Join The Conversation….

March 17, 2017March 17, 2017Cardiff Youth Council

Cardiff Youth Council is all about people connecting and making a difference. We use social media as well as those old fashioned face 2 face moments Here’s a little update for, please join the conversation and make Cardiff an even greater place to live, work and play!

A Curriculum 4 Life Update

March 17, 2017March 17, 2017Cardiff Youth Council

The Curriculum for life working group has been meeting monthly to create a campaign to raise awareness of the importance of PSE lessons and how they need improving.

The group have been working with a website developer Youth Friendly to develop the existing Tools4Life website, making it more accessible and adding more information to the website.

The group are now creating a campaign alongside the website so young people can show their support in asking for PSE lessons to be improved. The group are hoping to have the website launched soon! Here’s a sneaky preview of the new updated website.

Race and Religious Discrimination Campaign

March 17, 2017March 17, 2017Cardiff Youth Council

CYC members have been busy developing 2 key actions. Firstly we have developed an online survey to be delivered in high schools across Cardiff. The survey aims to capture the views of both pupils and staff around the issues of race and religious discrimination. We hope that it will identify good practice in dealing with these issues and highlight any areas to be addressed.

We would like to thank St Illtyds School for successfully trialling the survey including working with pupils to develop actions plans.

Our second action has been to develop a flyer that promotes tolerance and inclusion in Cardiff and for CYC members to distribute them at a series high profile community events. This month we were joined by Wales Football Manager Chris Coleman on the St David’s March through the city. Thanks for supporting our campaign Chris!

The group now plan to join the Stand Up Against Racism Protest on 18^th March. So please come and join us at the start at Grange Gardens at 11.30am.

Making Rights A Reality — Our Grand Council

December 14, 2016Cardiff Youth Council

100 children and young people from across 26 schools came together to discuss the important issues of children’s rights at this months Grand Council event at Cardiff City Hall.

The high profile event was sponsored by Cardiff Council Cabinet Member for Democracy and Citizen Engagement Dan De’Ath who opened the event stating ‘We need you to tell us what a Child Friendly City looks like because you are the experts! All the work and ideas developed throughout today’s event will shape our thinking and inform the way forward for Cardiff’.

Delegates had a busy day-long programme including taking part in workshops on democracy and children’s rights then breaking into teams to develop their vision of a Child Friendly City.

Each team looked into 3 elements communication, governance and democracy. After a short lunch break teams then returned to the council chamber to present their vision with one team even righting a song!

One young delegate from Greenhill School said that ‘he enjoyed the day so much, he was buzzing’

Cardiff Council will now take the findings from the Grand Council and use it to develop their city wide vision to embed children’s rights across the city.

An application to form a partnership with global charity Unicef will take place by the end of the year hopefully leading to a range of programmes for 2017 onwards.

Parliament Take Over!

December 14, 2016Cardiff Youth Council

On Friday 11^th November, Elin Bold and Stephanie Ezeadum, Members of Youth Parliament for Cardiff debated a range of topical issues, including the need for a ‘curriculum for life’ and tackling racial and religious discrimination in the House of Commons. Elin gave a speech on her ideas for a ‘better, kinder democracy’.

276 Members of Youth Parliament from across the UK participated in the debate and have been elected by their peers to represent them with proceedings being chaired by the Speaker of the House of Commons, Rt Hon John Bercow MP.

This year’s UK Youth Parliament’s sitting will have marked the 7th year that MYP’s have debated on the green benches of the House of Commons. The sitting heralds the start of UK Parliament Week, an annual festival of events intended to connect communities across the UK with their democracy. This year’s Make Your Mark ballot to decide the topics of the Youth Parliament’s debate in the House of Commons, received a record number of ballots, reaching 978,216 young people. This cemented Make Your Mark as the biggest youth consultation of its kind in UK history, with almost two million young people aged 11-18 taking part in the last two years.

The debates where broadcast on BBC Parliament.

Members of Youth Parliament voted to campaign on votes at 16 and a curriculum for life (devolved England issue only) in 2017 with 112,687 young people across the UK voting to lower the voting age to 16 as their top priority in the recent Make Your Mark ballot.

Votes at 16 has been a campaign for the UK Youth Parliament for several years and there were passionate speeches made for the campaign in the House of Commons Chamber.

Young People Shout Out!

December 14, 2016Cardiff Youth Council

CYC have been busy coordinating the UK Youth Parliament Make Your Mark Ballot here in Cardiff once again. CYC members have been contacting schools and youth groups all across the city to take part in the biggest youth consultation for 11-18 year olds in Europe. This year we had over 9500 young people from across the city take part and cast their votes. The top 3 issues voted for by young people were in 2016 were:

A curriculum should prepare us for life: School should cover topics including finance, sex & relationships and politics in the curriculum.

Tackling racism and religious discrimination, particularly against people who are Muslim or Jewish :

All young people should work together to combat racism and other forms of discrimination, and ensure we know the danger of such Hatred.

First aid education for all young people: All young people should learn basic First Aid on a regular basis , including CPR and all schools in the UK should have a defibrillator.

CYC working for improved mental health services

December 14, 2016Cardiff Youth Council

CYC Member Maegan Davies John (18) is representing young people from Cardiff on a national reference group which aims to enable the views of young people to be fed into the work of Vaughan Gething, Minister for Health.

The Mental Health Reference Group is supported by Young Wales and the first meeting took place in early October.

Maegan said ‘The meeting was really productive with young people exploring developments in Wales that try to improve mental health services for children and young people and how the group could have an influence on the developments taking place here in Wales.’

Maegan had the opportunity to share MindHub (www.MindHub.wales) the online resource for young people and their families developed by CYC to provide young people and those that support them access to a range of information in a quick way.

The group hope to meet again before Christmas to look at some of the statements that Together for Children & Young People have developed around what a young person should expect if they need to be seen by CAMHS.