Every young person has rights: We, as a representative council for 11-25 year olds, advocate for positive change and children’s rights across the city.
Cardiff Youth Council Members Yasmin Bashary and Stephanie Ezeadum (MYP) represented the CYC Race and Religious Discrimination Group at the annual MEND Annual Dinner and Islamophobia Exhibition last month.
MEND is a not-for-profit company that was founded to help empower and encourage British Muslims within local communities to be more actively involved in British media and politics.
Race and religious discrimination came second in this year’s CYC ballot and a working group has been formed to try to address the issue.
Guest speaker Yvonne Ridley explained that ‘we must not give oxygen to Far Right Groups and instead stand together and be united to expose the hate’.
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.
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!
Just a quick post to tell everyone that there’s a new campaign page up and running for CYC – #DontHateEducate
This page has been set up by Cardiff Youth Council members to support our priority of tackling racial and religious discrimination in Cardiff, if you’d like more information on how the UK Youth Parliament as a whole are taking on this priority, then click here.
A message to those of you who aren’t sure what these are,
Time credits are those pieces of paper, fondly nicknamed, “monopoly money” by some members of CYC. Some of you have been receiving these since the start of this academic year, and to those who haven’t, they look something like this;
The whole principle of these tokens is, that for every hour you spend helping out in the community, you get something in return- that’s why for every hour you spend at a CYC meeting, and working on your campaign in the office, you sign off for another on of these.
As lovely as they may look stuck on the wall as wallpaper, or as a decorative cover on one of your schoolbooks, or even making you feel that much richer by sitting there building up into a massive pile in your wallet, I think it’s about time we get out there and spend them. On what, I hear you cry! Well, it actually is pretty exciting. You can do a whole range of things, from going to the gym, to getting your hair cut, to working up a sweat at a Zumba class, to rock climbing, touring the stadium, or a farm, or a castle, to watching a movie… check out the list for yourself, here!
If NONE of that catches your fancy, which I doubt, you can also donate your time credits to an organisation that could use them to give children opportunities to play, and have fun in the community… or even give them to a friend or family member to use!
So get out there, and spend!
See you soon,
Mae and CYC
(Remember to comment, share, tweet, whatever if you have any questions!)
Firstly, sorry for activity being a bit slow over Christmas, but now we’re back!
Just to remind everyone of the meeting we have coming up tomorrow, and to show you the agenda that’s been prepared for tomorrow, here it is;
We have some really exciting news to share with you all about the Mental Health priority, and we’ll be doing some important work on all of our priorities this week, so it’d be great to see you all there!
As always, a warm welcome to any new members, and if you have any questions at all feel free to get in touch 🙂
So, it’s time for the third installment of Adventures of CYC in Stuttgart!
We began the day by spending a few hours in Stuttgart’s zoo; where we saw vibrant flamingos, adorably cuddly gorillas, munching fruit bats (who are far from the scary blood sucking stereotypical bat), exotic bird species from tropical areas of the world, and many more.
The zoo was highly enjoyable and even for those who weren’t head-over-heels for animals before, I think it’s safe to say that there’s definitely a new found soft spot for at least some these beautiful and majestic creatures. (ft. Stuttgart’s very own Dory and Nemo – safe and sound)
One of our CYC members, Luke has a new found friendship with this fluffy mammal. Meanwhile, this undying love between Mae and Alaw was rediscovered.
Our mischievous mob did have to bid farewell to the zoo and move onto the next element of the day; the city tour! This was our opportunity to see and view all the great projects that our counterparts are working on currently. And so it starts…
One thing all touring members did notice was the fantastic amount of artwork around the city. Albeit, graffiti, street art, architectural prowess or just the skyline at dusk.
All of our members left this inspiring tour with a fresh view on urban life. We had the opportunity to see one of Stuttgart’s many urban rooftop gardens, which now, of course in the midst of autumn, has been turned to a venue available to hire for those parties or gatherings you may wish to host.
Even this seemingly plain multistory car park holds so much creativity, on the walk up you would just see sneak peaks of each individual artists stamp on their area.
Just along the outskirts of this carpark was one of the projects Jugendrat Stuttgart had been working on for 3 years. Consisting of Dutsch inspired skate ramps which doubled up as a ‘chill zone’, 3G Football pitch and a wall for legal graffiti.
To end our hectically busy, yet highly rewarding day, we wound down and visited a youth centre on the other side of the city and cooked our own meals. After filling up on lots of scrumptious food, games of pool were played while our 2 lovely singer song writers accompanied us with more of their original creations.
We have some really exciting news to share with you all about the Mental Health priority, and we’ll be doing some important work on all of our priorities this week, so it’d be great to see you all there!
