Newcastle Youth Democracy Group - latest news

11 February 2020

| | 4 min read

Newcastle Youth Democracy Group - latest news

Newcastle Youth Democracy Group have been busy over the last six months. During that time, we have tried to make a difference for young people living, learning or working in Newcastle.
Most recently youth leaders have been supporting the Council’s Climate Change consultation. Youth Leaders wrote out to schools, youth organisations and friends to ask them to make sure they contributed to the survey. As a result, we had a fantastic response from young people who demonstrated their passion to influence climate change.

Education, employment and skills

In November the Youth Democracy Group, Children in Care Council and Care Leavers Group worked together to ask decision-makers to make work experience and apprenticeships the best experience they could for young people. Youth Leader Liyanah Riyaz the portfolio holder for Education is working with International Newcastle’s to find what children and young people have to say about students’ experiences with primary school education. You can add your views by completing the survey.

Ootnaboot in North East on public transport

Youth Leaders from Newcastle and across our region have worked with a PHD Student from Newcastle University and Nexus to design and build a transport website The North East Transport Forum is a group of young people who work together to try and improve how young people travel across the region. There goal has been to develop a website which will make transport easier to understand for young people. Visit our website and enjoy finding out the best ways to travel across the region.

Make your Mark

Nationally over 838,000 young people took part in a national ballot. Priorities were debated at the UK Youth Parliament annual sitting during the summer and MYP’s agreed ten issues that felt were the most important to their peers. In Newcastle a staggering 6740 votes were placed by young people, demonstrating their commitment to having a say in matters that are important to them.

The top three issues were them debated at the House of Commons in November. Congratulations to both of our local MP’s, Morgan Dobson and Tessy Idemudia, who managed to make a speech in support of two separate issues. At the end of the house of Commons debates UKYP voted for their top priority.
Nationally and locally the results were the same. Newcastle’s Youth Democracy Group will prioritise Protecting the Environment, Put an end to Knife Crime and Mental Health.

Youth Leaders would like to thank the schools who became voting stations during the Make Your Mark campaign.