SYP Weekly Update 129
4th February 2010
Find out more about what's happening in the SYP in our weekly updates, click on the section title to take you to more information for each of the articles...
List
Events
- The Gathering 2010
- HOT OPPORTUNITY- Young UK Ambassadors
- SYP Awards 2010
- Big Challenge Youth Leadership Team
Communications
- MSYP Brand & Presentation Guidance
Policy
- Working together to tackle bullying
- Prime Minister voices support for lowering voting age to 16
- Conveners Group Minutes now online
- SYP Tobacco Success!
UK and International
- Win a trip to Sweden - Youth Media Summit
General
- Hot of the press
- Youth Work and Schools
- Social Networking
NOTE: Some of the opportunities mentioned in the Weekly Update may apply only to Members of the Scottish Youth Parliament (MSYPs). Please email rob.g@scottishyouthparliament.org.uk for guidance.
The Gathering 2010
There’s a couple of interesting seminars being held throughout this years Gathering event at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre (EICC). If your thinking about getting some work experience, or fancy getting into the non-profit-sector. You might like to attend the seminar ‘Student internships in the voluntary sector’ on 19th of February at 11:00am-12:30pm. You’ll need to register yourself first by heading to the website by clicking here and emailing the organisers directly, so make sure you secure a place soon if you’re interested!
Another one which may tickle your taste buds is ‘Young voters - Your chance to have your say’ held by The Evening News on Thursday, 18 February, 2-4pm. Hosted by stand-up comedian Susan Morrison, you will have the chance to question the panel about Young voters, and how to make sure your opinions count if you can’t vote or as a first time voter. The panel consists of Big Brother winner and our former SYP chairman John Loughton; leader of the Scottish Labour Party and former Oxfam campaigns director, Iain Gray MSP; co-convener of the Scottish Green Party, Robin Harper MSP; and Nico Juetten, parliamentary officer for Scotland's Commissioner for Children & Young People. To reserve your place for free contact Alison Templeton at atempleton@edinburghnews.com or 0131 620 8703 A.S.A.P!
There are plenty of other seminars and workshops you might find interesting, take a look at the list of programmes by clicking here.
HOT OPPORTUNITY- Young UK Ambassadors- Apply, Apply, Apply!
If you missed reading this last week let's recap! The Young UK Ambassadors is a partnership project between SYP, British Youth Council, UK Youth Parliament, Northern Ireland Youth Forum and Funky Dragon. They believe that young people from all four nations working together is the only way to make sure that the voices of UK young people are represented on a range of global issues.
They are looking for inspiring, passionate young people to represent the UK and take the views of young people to global decision-makers and forums.
If you are:
• An MSYP aged 16-25
• Able to attend one of our recruitment day in Edinburgh on the 26th or 27th February 2010
• Able to participate in a residential induction weekend from 26th-28th March 2010
• Able to commit to the project for 1 year
• Interested in global decision-making
• Willing to develop and share your skills and experience
If you answered yes to all of the above then you could be one of the Young UK Ambassadors for 2010!
For further information please contact Marie (marie.m@scottishyouthparliament.org.uk, 0131 313 2488). You can also download a Young Ambassadors role description and application from the website by clicking here. We are giving candidates the option of submitting a written or video application, the choice is yours!
The deadline for applications is midnight on Sunday 14th February and no applications will be accepted after this date. In the meantime check out their promotional video for an idea of what the next year might have in store http://www.youtube.com/youngukambassadors.
SYP Awards 2010
If you haven't nomiated yet for the SYP Awards there's still time!
Has any current MSYP or support worker been fantastic over the last year? If so nominate them for an award, there’s six categories to choose from and it couldn’t be easier on survey monkey to fill it in quickly and easily. You have until Friday 19th February to get your votes in!
Just click here to nominate . Good luck!
Big Challenge Youth Leadership Team
Do you want to make decisions that will influence a UK wide youth programme? Are You 16-25? Then Big Challenge Youth Leadership Team need YOU!
They are currently recruiting for the next Big Challenge Youth Leadership Team...
For those of you who don’t know what it is?
Big Challenge is a UK wide competition for 16-25 year olds who have ideas to change their communities through exciting projects. The Youth Leadership Team gives out a £60,000 prize fund every year to support the best project ideas.
The part where you come in:
The Youth Leadership Team make key decisions about the programme including the competition theme for the year, short-listing all of the applications and then supporting Big Challenge project winners. They are a group of inspirational young people who come from all over the UK, from a variety of backgrounds, with a range of skills and experiences that make up a diverse and lively group. Their advice ensures that Big Challenge focuses on what young people want and need today.
Last year’s team have got loads out of being involved including two residentials, training in a number of areas, making big decision about funding projects and making great friends. Please can you forward this on to anyone that you think would get a lot out if this too?
The deadline for applications is Friday 12th February
Please contact Tiana for an application form - tiana@changemakers.org.uk who will also answer any questions that you may have, or see http://www.bigchallenge.org.uk/ for more info.
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MSYP brand & Presentation Guidance
You may have noticed things have changed a little at SYP over the past few months. We’ve got a spanking new logo, and some rather fabulously bold colours, and even a new typeface (for those of you who notice the little things)! So we’ve designed a wee booklet for you guys & gals to use as a reference when you plan on sharing the SYP message. You can find this tasty little treat available to download on the website by clicking here. You’ll also find our ‘Guide to Giving a Kick-Ass Presentation the SYP Way’ on that page, and our new PowerPoint template!
Remember they are in the resources section, under Promotional Materials. Please use them as a handy guide before you make an SYP presentation, or need our details for other materials. If you have any queries give us a shout at: social@scottishyouthparliament.org.uk.
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Working together to tackle bullying
If you or someone you know has ever been bullied, you’ll know how upsetting, worrying and damaging it can be. Bullying affects many young people across Scotland each year and it’s important that everyone works together to tackle its causes and effects. Young people’s views are vital to help shape the way we do this, so with that in mind, six MSYPs joined together with youth work professionals on 28th January to talk about what should be done, and make recommendations to the Scottish Government about how it should happen.
The SYP teamed up with our partners at the national youth work agency YouthLink Scotland to bring together young people with youth workers and policy experts to look at the issue. MSYPs Danielle Rowley, Jodie Campbell, Anneliese Burnett, Christie Clarke, Kieran Morrell and Nathan Duncan took part in a fun and interactive session that looked at what bullying is and what impact it has on young people’s lives, how the youth work sector can play its part in tackling it and how everyone can work together to make it happen.
The session was looking at the Scottish Government’s proposals for a national approach to anti-bullying, which you can read online here. Issues such as cyber-bullying, why people bully each other, what is already being done and how young people can be involved in all parts of the approach were raised and using creative methods (including clothes lines, googly eyes and feathers!) MSYPs did a fantastic job of sharing the views of young people across Scotland. Together with the opinions of the youth work sector these will feed into a response which will hopefully having a big part in shaping the Government’s approach!
The many outcomes and opinions from the day will be gathered together into a joint response from SYP and YouthLink Scotland, so watch this space for it coming to www.syp.org.uk soon!
Prime Minister voices support for lowering voting age to 16
The Prime Minister has confirmed his support for lowering the voting age to 16 but said such a move must go hand-in-hand with improvements in citizenship education.
Speaking to MPs on the House of Commons Liaison Committee, Gordon Brown said that if schools were teaching citizenship to a high standard and 16-year-olds could "assume their British citizenship in a formal way" this would pave the way to lowering the voting age to 16. He said: "If we are going to have reform like this we need to make sure that citizenship education is good."
Brown said he thought most 16-year-olds were mature enough to vote, and that young people today were "more knowledgeable, more able to find out what is going on, and more informed". He said there would be a wide consultation before lowering the voting age. You can read more on this by clicking here.
Looks like votes at 16 are becoming more likely as the days go on. Fingers crossed we’ll keep seeing more progression on one of our major campaigns Votes@16 in the future.
Conveners Group Minutes now online
Regular readers of the Weekly Update will know that the Conveners Group has been beavering away since it was set up in July. Why not catch up on what the Group has been up to? The minutes of all three meetings the Conveners Group has held are now online. You can check them out by clicking here.
SYP Tobacco Success!
Over the past year, the SYP has been heavily involved in finding out what you thought of the Scottish Government’s plans to cut the number of young people that smoke. MSYPs have twice been quizzed by the Scottish Parliament about young people’s views and we’ve run two large consultations with young people so we can tell the politicians what you think. Well yesterday, the Scottish Parliament agreed to change the law – including a number of proposals that the SYP supports!
The new law will ban cigarette vending machines and means that tobacco products sold in shops have to be kept out of sight rather than behind the counter. A new register of tobacco retailers will be created with shopkeepers that break the law banned from selling cigarettes. The law will be brought into line with alcohol sales, so it will be an offence for under 18s to buy tobacco products, and it’ll also be illegal for over 18s to buy cigarettes for under 18s to smoke. These are all things that young people were in favour of and that the SYP supported when we spoke to MSPs.
It will be possible for the police to be able to confiscate cigarettes from young people who they suspect to be under 18, which we weren’t in favour of, but on the whole the new laws are things that young people wanted. So, some success for SYP and has made all the effort by MSYPs worth it!
Win a trip to Sweden - Youth Media Summit
The Institute for Global Ethics UK Trust is planning to take 6 young people (18-25) to Sweden, 14-18 June 2010 to represent the UK at the World Summit on Media for Children and Young People. You will be trained in Facilitation and Leadership Skills, lead 4 workshops for the Global Youth Council and facilitate the creation of a Global Youth Media Charter. All flights, accommodation and food included. To win the chance to be one of those 6 young people please let Global Ethics know in any media format (short film, photo, animation, graphic, poem, letter, article, or even an expressive dance!) explaining why you would like to go!
Deadline 8th February 2010.
For more information go to www.globalethics.org.uk/cms/index.php?id=113.
Hot of the press
Tom Sparks, an MSYP, speaker and advocate for Amnesty International, featured this week in an article titled "Young people fighting for their rights" in the Evening News. The article highlights how Tom is a regular school speaker, and is extremely passionate about human rights issues. Tom aims to teach young people about their human rights and highlight global issues relating to them.
Tom says: "I think it's incredibly important that young people know all about their human rights and how to maintain them. Young people can be treated differently if the person is under the impression that they will cause trouble, but I think this is often very short- sighted.”
To read more click here. Good on you Tom! Keep up the fab work you’re doing for SYP and Amnesty!
Another MSYP to make the press this week is Matthew Landsburgh who has been involved in a steering group to set up an official Dundee City Youth Council. Representatives from Dundee City Council’s education, leisure and communities departments met with members of Dundee Youth Voice and the Scottish Youth Parliament to decide on how the process should move forward. It was decided a consultation exercise will be prepared with the aim of setting the “composition, structure and role/remit” of the Youth Council, and the opinions of schools, youth projects, charities, ethnic minority organisations and disabled groups will be canvassed until June providing a sample of the issues the new council could address. To read more click here. Good work Mathew, we’ll keep our ear to the ground over the coming months to see how this develops.
Youth Work and Schools
David Leitch MSYP, Convener of the SYP’s Education and Lifelong Learning Committee, was recently invited to join a group looking into the relationship between youth work and schools, jointly administered by YouthLink Scotland and Learning and Teaching Scotland (LTS). After his first meeting we’ve heard loads of positive feedback about how well David did and how useful his contribution was, so well done David!
The group is made up of a collection of professionals from the education and youth work sectors, together with policy-makers, and they come together to discuss important issues in order to improve things for young people. Speaking about the meeting, David said: “We have recently discussed issues such as GLOW, funding for college courses and student associations in colleges and the impact of budget cuts and the recession on youth work and schools.” David’s even been attempting to make sure that young people are even more involved: “I have tried to set up projects between SYP and LTS regarding a possible GLOW focus group made up of LTS staff and MSYPs, and I am also hoping to represent the SYP on the LTS’s advisory group which will allow young people to have a say as to how LTS is run.”
Social Networking
Just a reminder that we’ve got a smashing Facebook page which we update regularly with news articles we think you might be interested in, so make sure if you’re not already a fan of our page to become one! And spread the word by suggesting us to your friends, even if they’re not an MSYP, we have loads of great opportunities open to all young people and loads of news articles which concern everyone, so it’s worth boosting our profile by suggesting our page to your mates. Click here to view our page.
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