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GIVING YOUNG PEOPLE A VOICE! |
Government gives us the thumbs up
1st November 2007
By Joshua McTaggart
“That’s fantastic.” That was the response Government minister Ed Miliband gave when he was told what young people in North Somerset were doing to combat the negative stereotype of youth in the media.
 Mr Miliband had invited members of the UK Youth Parliament (UKYP) to meet with him in his office in Whitehall and discuss what was being done locally and nationally for young people.
Arriving in his office set up with upmarket cakes and biscuits and its grand view of Number 10’s back garden, there was an air of apprehension before the minister arrived.
Despite being half an hour late due to a prior engagement with the PM himself, Mr Miliband took the time to engage with each individual young person there to find out what was happening in their respective areas.
When he found out that in North Somerset we had been working relentlessly on SRE campaigns, improving public transport and giving young people a positive image in the press through Youth Matters, the minister seemed very impressed and was pleased to take a recent issue of Youth Matters to read over.
After a brief interval, so Mr Miliband could go and say goodbye to Gordon Brown before he left for a visit to Scotland, UKYP addressed three major issues with the minister.
He agreed the Government needed to support UKYP as much as possible by looking into more efficient ways of funding, how the Government can engage more young people in their consultations and what the Government press office can do to improve the image of young people in the media..
The meeting closed and Mr Miliband left very impressed with what he had seen and vowed to champion UKYP in Government as much as possible.
With ‘Youth Matters’ in the Government eye, it may not be long before other areas of the UK are giving their young people a fair voice in the media.
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