Successful ESRC Festival of Social Science event
Thu, 10 Dec 2015 12:33:00 GMT
The University of Huddersfield hosted a youth citizenship event which welcomed schools from across the Kirklees area, as part of the ESRC’s Festival of Social Science, organised by Dr Andrew Mycock, Associate Director of CRISS.
The event, ‘My Country My Vote’ was held in collaboration with Kirklees Council and included contributions from Manchester-based The Politics Project, Kirklees Council Electoral Services as well as contributions from Politics students from within the University of Huddersfield.
Throughout the day, young people to received training from Council staff, academics and politics students in how our democratic processes operate and how to conduct political campaigns. The My Country My Vote project ran for the first time in 2013/2014 with three schools from targeted priority areas across Kirklees. The pupils’ campaign themes included improving youth services, raising the national minimum wage in line with the living wage and lowering the voting age. The winning teams received certificates and visited Westminster to present their winning campaigns to their local MPs.
Commenting on the event, Dr Andrew Mycock noted: “We are very grateful for the support provided by the Economic and Social Research Council. This is the fourth consecutive year that they have funded the University to host a youth citizenship event. The project offers opportunities for Huddersfield students to engage with young people and connect them to local democracy by empowering them to change things in their local communities’.
The project will run until April 2016 and a civic reception with local MPs and councillors will be hosted in May and then a final report will be submitted to government.
