Category: cardiff youth council

Universal Children’s Day

Universal Children’s Day

Cardiff 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

Spread the word with a tweet and help us share the message for Universal Children’s Day!

#UCDCardiff

The Votes are in… CYC Elections

Cardiff Youth Council

 

DCTkDDWXgAEydxrDCTky-zXoAAa9zc

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’

 

A Curriculum 4 Life Update

A Curriculum 4 Life Update

Cardiff Youth Council

c4life site

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

Race and Religious Discrimination Campaign

Cardiff Youth Council

chris coleman

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 18th March. So please come and join us at the start at Grange Gardens at 11.30am.

cardiff is for all

Making Rights A Reality — Our Grand Council

Making Rights A Reality — Our Grand Council

Cardiff 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!

Parliament Take Over!

Cardiff Youth Council

house-of-commons-sitting-2015

On Friday 11th 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!

Young People Shout Out!

Cardiff 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

CYC working for improved mental health services

Cardiff 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.

Second Grand Council event 23/03

Second Grand Council event 23/03

Cardiff Youth Council

Hey guys!

As some of you will know, as part of its plan to engage more with young people and CYC, Cardiff Council are working with us to produce three Grand Council events at the City Hall this year; the first of which that was held in December, on the theme of “What Matters to Future Generations”  was a great success.

We’re really looking forward to meeting young people from schools colleges and youth organisations all over Cardiff this March for our second installment, in order to discuss how Cardiff can achieve UNICEF “Child Friendly City” status. This status would recognise Cardiff as a city committed to fulfilling children’s rights.

You can find out more about this initiative here.

We’ll be looking at the criteria needed to meet this, and will have the opportunity to offer solutions from the perspective of young people to the challenges Cardiff faces in becoming “Child Friendly”.

Here are the basic points that have to be met:

Young people… 

  • know and understand their rights know about the services available and how to access them
  • have a say in the design, delivery and evaluation of services
  • experience connected, tailored and responsive services, even if their needs are complex
  • feel safe, nurtured, prioritised and are treated with dignity.

 

For those of you who have received confirmation of their place at the event, I’ll look forward to seeing you there! Remember that the event is being held at Cardiff City Hall, Cathays Park, 9:30-2:00, and light refreshments and a packed lunch will be provided. 

 And for those of you who are not attending the event- is there anything you’d like to comment on with regards to Cardiff becoming a “Child-Friendly City?” If you have any remarks, questions, comments, concerns, or suggestions regarding any of the above points, or anything else, don’t hesitate to get in touch! 

You can comment on this post, tweet us @cardiffyc, get in touch via our Facebook page, or send an email to me at maegandaviesjohn@outlook.com.

Thanks for reading guys, and remember to like and share!

Mae and CYC 🙂