cardiff – Cardiff Youth Council

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

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.

Fitzalan High School Develop Community Manifesto

March 17, 2017March 17, 2017Cardiff Youth Council

The iSay Ambassadors Team worked with pupils from Fitzalan High School as part of their Eisteddfod celebrations early this month.

After receiving a workshop to enable participants to understand children’s rights, democracy and participation the young people then split into groups to create a manifesto and discuss issues present in the areas they live.

The community manifesto will now be made available to candidates in the local election taking place in May so they can help work on the issues raised by pupils, which included concerns over safe playing areas, littering, dog fouling, quality of local services and substance misuse.

Families First Review

March 17, 2017March 17, 2017Cardiff Youth Council

The Active Involvement Team (AIT) have been running workshops across the city to enable young people to take part in a review of the Families First Programme.

Families First provides support for families across 50 services and has been running in Cardiff for the last four years but it is now coming to the end of its funding cycle.

As part of the development of Families First services and possible re-commissioning AIT developed a 1 hour workshop to provide a platform for young people to identify issues that their families face and to highlight potential solutions.

Participation Worker Lee Richards said ‘It’s been really great over 200 young people have taken part in the workshops with more planned in the coming weeks. We would like to take this time to thank the services, staff and most importantly the young people that have given up their time to help us’

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.

United Nations Universal Day Of The Child Celebration

December 14, 2016Cardiff Youth Council

The globally recognised day for children’s rights was marked by CYC with an event at County Hall on Monday 21st of November.

A range of key decision makers and partners joined CYC members including Council Directors, Senior Politicians, representatives from Welsh Government Ministerial Office, 3^rd sector partners and the Children’s Commissioners Office.

As well as championing children’s rights participants were served afternoon tea and played a range of rights based games.

The busy programme included showcasing the positive impact of the work developed by CYC in 2015/16, learning about Rights Respecting Schools, announcing youth priorities for Cardiff 2016, and recognising schools roll in this year’s Make Your Mark Programme.

CYC Chairperson Xinyu Ye (17) said ‘We think it is important to bring together key decision makers to raise awareness of the importance of children’s rights and highlight examples of work which comes as a result of children being able to have their rights met’

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.

All Aboard The ARC – Young Interviewers Programme

December 14, 2016December 14, 2016Cardiff Youth Council

9 Cardiff Youth Council members completed Young Interviewers training and have gone straight to working alongside colleagues from Children’s Services.

The Young Interviewers took part in 2 rounds of interviews for positions within the new Adolescent Resource Centre (ARC) based in Fairwater. The advert for the posts of Senior Support Worker and Support Worker received lots of attention with a range of great candidates being shortlisted.

Our team of Young Interviewers completed 16 interviews over 2 evenings. Each interview consisted of 6 separate tasks with candidates being asked to move from interview style activities to making a poster!

The scoring went on late into the evening but the team were fuelled by the local fish and chip shop.

ARC Team Manager Carys Davies said ‘The Young Interviewers were great, we couldn’t have done it without them!’

Young Interviewer, Rose Melhuish (15) said ‘It was great fun but it was also important to have young people involved as the successful candidates will be working with young people and their families’.

The ARC will provide integrated support for young people aged 11-17 years, who are at risk of becoming looked after by the local council (LAC). It will provide an outreach service for families in crisis and will work both within the Centre and at the family home if required.

We wish the team all the very best!