My Country My Vote – Kirklees youngsters join democratic process
Fri, 27 Nov 2015 11:50:00 GMT
Young people join with the Politics department and Kirklees Council for the Economic and Social Research Council’s Festival of Social Science
STAFF and students from the University of Huddersfield Politics department recently held a youth citizenship event for young people from schools across Kirklees as part of the Economic and Social Research Council’s Festival of Social Science.
The event, entitled My Country My Vote was hosted in collaboration with Kirklees Council and included contributions from Manchester-based The Politics Project, Kirklees Council Electoral Services and Politics students from the University of Huddersfield.
The My Country My Vote project has been designed by Kirklees Council and the University of Huddersfield to encourage greater and more positive engagement by young people in the democratic processes.
The event offered opportunities for young people to receive training from Council staff, academics and politics students in how our democratic processes operate and how to conduct political campaigns.
As part of this process they participated in a series of workshop that sought to encourage the development of youth citizenship skills and knowledge to allow them to conduct campaigns in their schools based on real issues of local concern. The winning teams from each school will get to present their campaigns to Kirklees Council elected officials and put across issues that affect them and their communities.
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.
