This weekend, on Sunday 23rd May, 5 youth councillors, myself (MYP), Joshua Payne (MYP), Chantel Birtwisle (DMYP), Jess Minihan (DMYP), Dean Bratherton (DMYP) and Lee Thompson (YC) went down to Knowsley to meet with other Members of Youth Parliament from around the North West region.

        YouthForia runs 3 regional campaigns, which are YOMP (Youth Opportunities, Media, Police), Transport and Citizenship, as well as the Young Ministers of Health project. This weekend, we split up into the campaigns to discuss campaign actions to be planned and taken to make the campaigns more successful.

        YOMP (Youth Opportunities, Media, Police), split up into three campaigns; Youth Opportunities, Media and Police. In the Youth Opportunities group, it was decided that across the region, packs would be made to advise councils of how to promote youth opportunities for leisure and education. This would include advice to create a questionnaire, a petition, and of the possible funding streams that may be used. In the Police group, an idea was raised that a card would be made so that young people knew their rights. This would hopefully come in soon, so that youth people across Oldham had a better relationship with the Police. The Media group planned an event that young people could carry out in their area with the aim of young people breaking down barriers with people in their community.

            In the transport group, there was discussion on how to improve disability access on public transport, and how to provide safety, and avoid discrimination of young people and public transport.

            This experience not only benefited the youth councillors that went on it, but progress was made on our regional campaigns that would benefit the youth of the north-west.