Two young people from each organisation were trained to become Youth Action Leaders and were tasked with leading, supporting and encouraging their group to design and deliver a project to change their local area for the better. In this blog, Keiron reflects on their role in the project.
We started in September 2024 having been approached by Youth Access who we have worked with before on the Fund the Hubs campaign (a campaign for early access mental health hubs to be in every area of the country) to see if YPAS would be interested in running a pilot led by young people, for young people, all about campaigning.
So, of course, we said yes! We decided to create a brand new group from scratch, which would give young people the tools to run their own campaign. The first thing we needed to do was recruit young people, so we reached out across YPAS for young people who would want to join us on our journey.
Young people would be paid for their time, given opportunities to learn new skills and make friends, all while making a difference in their community.
Shaping the space
Once we had recruited our group of young people (about 6) we then began to plan what we wanted our space to look like. We decided early on that this would be an online space and that we would meet every other Wednesday as a group. We wanted our space to be relaxed, informal and inclusive of everyone.
To achieve this, in our first session we began by getting to know each other, with both youth leaders and young campaigners equal in the space. We always began our sessions the same way. With a fun icebreaker, usually a ‘spin the wheel’ or a ‘get to know’ question. These helped set the tone for our sessions. We also encouraged everyone to share their names and pronouns to create a comfortable space for all. Since we wanted everyone to feel comfortable, we also encouraged young people to contribute in whatever way they wanted. So some of our group spoke verbally, some used the whiteboard, and some the zoom chat, but all were listened to and respected.
Finding a focus
For the first couple of sessions, we focused on learning more about our passions, interests and skills. We created a skills audit to find out what all of our strengths were and discovered what social issues we were all interested in. We also set some ground rules and created a group agreement poster together so that everyone was on the same page and could feel safe.
We discovered that there were a few common themes that we were all interested in: bullying, discrimination and young people’s mental health. For the next couple of sessions, we took a deeper dive into these issues, exploring them in more detail, thinking about what was achievable and meaningful for our group. We used a variety of different activities to accomplish this, using our Zoom whiteboard to illustrate this journey throughout the campaign.
This was probably the most difficult part of our journey, as everyone was so passionate about the issue closest to their heart. However, as a group, we pushed through this and decided that the fairest way to decide was a good old-fashioned vote. In the end, discrimination narrowly edged out the other issues. However, we realised something amazing! That both bullying and mental health fit perfectly within that topic, so we could still explore these issues and potentially come back to them in the future. Phew!
Making it happen
At this point we were about halfway through the time we had for our campaign. We had decided our topic, we knew what we were good at, and we all were on the same page. Now it was time to make it happen. We spent the next sessions narrowing down discrimination into a specific issue or question. Sometimes, such a big, important topic can feel overwhelming, so we wanted to help reduce this anxiety.
We explored the specific problems that young people face today due to discrimination, which we detailed on our whiteboard, and then developed different solutions to address each of these issues. Some of these felt like they would take more time than we had, more resources or more people, but some we realised that we could really make a difference. But we had one small problem. As much as we all had personal experiences of discrimination, we needed to understand what other young people thought. We wanted to ensure we were hearing as many voices as possible in our campaign.
At this point, we had one of our many ‘Eureka!’ moments. We discovered that a relevant event was coming up at Liverpool Town Hall. One where young people, professionals and senior leaders would all be in the same room. One where we could ask questions on important issues, speak with other young people and hold professionals to account. And what’s even better? We could all meet each other in person for the first time! We just knew we had to attend.
Market research
At the event, we came up with a plan. We did our own version of ‘market research’ around the topic of discrimination - we wanted to know what young people thought, what mattered to them and what solutions they could come up with. And that’s exactly what we did! Being together in a physical space was so important for our group, and allowed some of our quieter members to shine, which made us feel even more like a team. We conducted our research and came back together for the next session to discuss our findings.
In this session, it was evident there was one main theme coming up throughout the responses we gathered, and it was a really simple message. One word: kindness! For so many of the issues we raised, a simple act of kindness, and a bit of empathy and understanding would go a long way. So how could we promote kindness, tolerance and understanding?
A kindness campaign
This is what we thought about next. We came up with many ideas together: could we create videos to show how to be kind to someone who experiences discrimination? Could we demonstrate how someone can be an active bystander? Could we use our collective love of LEGO to promote our message? How about a poster to hand out to schools?
And that brings us to today, where the ‘pilot’ part of our project is finishing, and the even more exciting part begins. We are hoping to use the knowledge and skills we learned to build on these foundations to create a meaningful campaign in Merseyside.
It may be that we decide to stick to our original idea, or we may twist in a different direction, but we are so proud of what we have achieved already.
In reflection
In our final session, we decided to reflect on what has been a journey of discovery for us all, youth leaders and campaigners alike. We reflected on what went well, and some of the challenges we faced, as well as what we hoped for the future and for when the group hopefully restarts soon. The thing that stood out most wasn’t the skills we learned, our new understanding of how to build a campaign, or even the amazing town hall event. Whilst we all reflected that these were absolutely important parts of our individual and collective journeys, and things we greatly valued, what really stood out were the dynamics in our space. How we were all listened to, respected, included, and the relationships we built as a team. That is what we are most proud of, and what we most want to continue into the future, as well, of course, as even more LEGO!
Profile
Keiron is 24 and a Peer Researcher for YPAS. He is passionate about social causes particularly around neurodiversity and LGBTQ+ issues. In their spare time they love to do photography and walking in their local area.
