MYP takes your views national

Interview by Joshua McTaggart

Members of the UK Youth Parliament from across the country got together at the end of July for their annual youth summit to discuss a variety of issues including climate change, university fees and public transport. Your Member of Youth Parliament Belinda Hill travelled down to Exeter University to represent you and your ideas in helping put together UKYP's 2008 manifesto.

Youth Matters caught up with Belinda to hear what she got up to at her first annual sitting as MYP.

"Getting together with other young people from across the country was brilliant; we had debates, training sessions and worked on the manifesto and campaigns for the year. I was in the 'Your Future, Your World, Your Fight' campaign group, which looked at recycling in schools, which will now campaign for free recycling in all schools"

Belinda explained the event taught her many new things, "Meeting lots of interesting people with different opinions showed me that different people are fighting for different things. Not everyone agrees with our campaigns but that helps us find weaknesses, it probably makes them stronger"

"You can expect a lot of campaigns to start taking place soon, which are going to be quite big throughout the UK. You can expect to see a fight for our aims to be achieved, sooner rather than later." This will include a review of university fees, concessionary fares on public transport and greater environmental awareness in schools.

After a fantastic time representing your views, Belinda wanted to say "I really hope UKYP achieves what you want as young people."

Belinda and the North Somerset Youth Parliament are putting their own manifesto together at the moment, so if you want to get involved with the group then get in touch with Youth Matters for more details about how to join.