cyc – 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

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

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Second Grand Council event 23/03

March 19, 2016March 19, 2016Cardiff 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 🙂

Don’t Hate, Educate

January 31, 2016February 8, 2016Cardiff Youth Council

Hi everyone,

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.

This is a really important issue, so please show your support by liking and sharing our new page: https://www.facebook.com/donthateeducatecyc/

Look out for upcoming events, and please make sure to attend and show your support!

Thank you for reading,

Stay awesome.

Xinyu, and CYC 🙂

Time Credits

January 25, 2016January 25, 2016Cardiff Youth Council

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!)

Happy New Year!

January 12, 2016January 12, 2016Cardiff Youth Council

Hey everyone,

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 🙂

Look out for some exciting updates really soon!!

Thanks again,

Mae and CYC 🙂

Exciting Times

December 14, 2015December 15, 2015Cardiff Youth Council

Hey everyone,

On Wednesday, the 16th of December we have an important meeting- following last month’s discussion of the priorities, we’re now ready to formulate action plans and start working towards our goals- positive change in Cardiff under these categories;

Living Wage
Curriculum For Life
Tackling Racial and Religious Discrimination
Mental Health
Transport

You can read more about them below, and feel free to ask any questions you have on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram, or by emailing me on maegandaviesjohn@outlook.com

This month we also have a really important opportunity to shape the new mental health service in Cardiff!

Hopefully we’ll see lots of you there, and remember new members are always welcome 🙂

Thanks,

Mae and CYC

First Aid In The Curriculum

November 20, 2015November 20, 2015Cardiff Youth Council

Hello,

So firstly, thank you to everyone who came to November’s meeting- we’ll summarize on here what steps we managed to make in deciding what our priorities mean within the next week.

Today, however, I saw something in the news which I think will be interesting to those who feel passionately about the fact that we need to improve the education system to prepare us for life. Our PSE survey last year, featuring 1030 young people, showed us that most pupils aren’t taught first aid at school, but that they would like to be.

This article claims that the opportunity to vote on the issue was totally missed, as the allocated time for this bill was totally taken up by the education secretary and other MP’s blabbing on about it for ridiculous amounts of time- one of them for a full 50 minutes.

The group of MPs used up the bill’s time by talking for hours, with one speech by an education minister described by the deputy speaker as like reading a “telephone book” out loud.

Is this fair?

Do you agree with any of the arguments given by those who oppose it as to why it should not even be considered, and why they don’t think a vote should be granted on the issue?

Those arguments include;

“he himself had been taught first aid in school but had forgotten what he was taught.”

“he did not want “the Government to be sticking their nose in at every turn trying to lecture [teachers] every five minutes that they should be doing this, that, and the other”.

According to the St John’s Ambulance team, it’s a matter of life or death whether a child is taught first aid- is it common sense that we should all know what to do should an incident occur, and that educating at a young age would be a good way to ensure this?

Let us know what you think, and if there are any stories in the news you think are important to young people, feel free to let us know. Additionally, if there’s any relevant topic you’d like to write about, you can!

Thanks again,

Mae and CYC 🙂

Belated Update on Fayre

November 9, 2015Cardiff Youth Council

Hello again!

If some of you haven’t heard already, quite a few Saturdays ago (26th September) we held our one and only Anniversary Fair for the 60th twinning anniversary of Cardiff and our wonderful sister city Stuttgart. It had taken weeks of planning and the hard work paid off. Cardiff Youth Council volunteers were there for the duration of the fair which had started earlier than planned – from 1pm until around 4 o’clock. As Jugendrat Stuttgart and Cardiff Youth Council have been working in collaboration for a key part of this 60 year long so far twinning, we felt it was a sister city’s duty to help promote our fabulous twin.

At the fayre we had a variety of fairground type stalls:

* Name the teddy bear (with German names, of course!)

* Guess the number of sweets in the jar

* Face painting (by a very talented newly recruited member of CYC)

And on top of these very popular mini stalls, we had a German taster session in the corner, a quick fun lesson of the numbers 1-12 in German by a member of our partner organization the Cardiff-Stuttgart Association, Claudia (many thanks!!)

We saw parallels once again in our two wonderful cultures, this time in language, in an exercise that allowed people to see just how easy it is to pick in German, if only just a couple of cool words to whip out as a party trick!

For those of you who don’t know, Stuttgart is an urban city in Germany, a highly eco-friendly and green city, one that is modern and well-developed yet with much historical culture, which 10 members of CYC have been lucky enough to be flying over to see this month, finishing up this special year’s work on the 60th anniversary of twinning!

See you all on Facebook and Twitter, and in our next meeting which will take place on the 18th November!

Thanks all!

CYC

The Results Are In!

November 3, 2015November 5, 2015Cardiff Youth Council

As most of you know by now, CYC members, and young members of the British Youth Council all over the UK have been working hard to co-ordinate the biggest youth consultation in Britain… and the results are in! The UK results can be found here, but here is a detailed account of the findings in Cardiff.

Unfortunately, there was only a turnout of 38% among Cardiff’s school pupils… but altogether, we managed to collect the views of over 7,000 young people, which is great! Hopefully next year, you can help us make that number even bigger?

The top four were an interesting mix, with Living Wage coming out on top, followed by Curriculum 4 Life, Tackling Racism and Religious Discrimination, and at fourth, Mental Health. On the 18th of November, Cardiff Youth Council will be coming together for their monthly all members meeting, where a discussion will take place about what these results mean, and how we can go forward in tackling these really important issues for young Cardiffians all over the city. Come and be a part of the discussion!

Have a read through the rest of the results, and make sure you let us know what you think in the comments, or on Twitter, Facebook, or our new Instagram account. See you there, thanks again guys 🙂

Last day! sniffle

November 1, 2015November 2, 2015Cardiff Youth Council

So for the last final time, we wake up in this wonderful city. Day 5!

After much hard work throughout our stay, we were treated to a visit to the Mercedes museum.

12194139_905768222846177_626059857_o — A bit excited, are we?

I’ll let the fabulously stylish, timeline-style museum tell you its own story! Enjoy the cars 🙂

11667003_843879259064245_524835275_n — Even the building itself was awesome to look at

Museum Collage 2 — old models v. new ones- which do you prefer?

It’s important to remember the old guys which took us around for so long before we had the very first car.

The unlimited supply of cool displays and of course, the authentic logo.

Okay I may go back on my word, I really don’t think just those pictures alone do that magnificent museum justice. Even for someone who isn’t that into cars, I still found that this was a good walk through history. You started your tour from the top of this building and moved your way down through all that’s been. Starting the journey right back to the times of horse and carriage and then all the way to an inside views of the modern race car’s highly complex engine.

Not only a fine history lesson, but also a great life lesson. The struggles that the company faced after WWII were very real and they dealt with the issues incredibly well.

All good things must come to an end, all aboard for back to Cardiff!

To round up this wonderfully eye-opening trip, I think it’s fair to say everyone had given their 100% effort throughout the trip, evident in the many sleepy heads on our journey back.

And there are a few people we must thank for this trip – our lovely youth workers and Michael for organising this trip, for keeping us fed and entertained, for showing us life in a different light in the 5 short days we spent together.