National Eisteddfod
August is National Eisteddfod month in Wales and this year saw Rocio head to Pontypridd to run a drop-in session with the area’s local Member of Parliament and Member of the Senedd. We met with young people from the area and spoke with the elected representatives about our key areas of work this year. At the session, Rocio met with six young people who are actively involved in a campaign to raise concerns about the impact of quarrying in Craig-yr-Hesc, and commended them on using their voice and getting involved in their local community.
Community Advisors
We work with different groups of young people across Wales as our community advisors and this month we met a few of them at our office in Port Talbot. One of the key tasks of our Community Advisors is to help us promote children’s rights. At this event we heard from Barnardo’s Merthyr Young Carers and the Vale Rights Ambassadors about all their work including how the Vale Rights Ambassadors have delivered 42 workshops to over 1200 children and have developed an amazing board game all about the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Community advisor groups also help us with specific pieces of work and this month saw the groups supporting us with our project on housing, homelessness and where children live in Wales. Through a mix of activities and discussions, advisors provided us with a great insight into housing issues facing young people and concerns around community safety.
Inaugural Youth Community Focused School Conference
At the end of the summer term, members of our team attended the inaugural Youth Community Focused Schools Conference in Swansea. We heard from pupils from six schools who came together to share ideas on how young voices could have a huge impact on policy making and building prosperous communities.
If you’re looking to support young people to make a difference and raise awareness of issues that matter to them, we have a free, bilingual resource on our website called ‘Making a Difference’, which you can download by clicking this link.
Rioting
We were shocked and appalled by the events that took place this month across UK towns and cities. The scenes of violence which included targeting people simply because of their race or religion or because of where they are believed to be from was unacceptable. We heard from children about how they were worried about what they’d seen and heard. In response, we’ve written to the Cabinet Secretaries in Welsh Government responsible for Education and for Children and Young People offering our support in creating new/signposting to existing materials which may support schools to have constructive conversations about the issues including community cohesion and to ensure they’re in a positive position to support learners as they return in September.
In the news
Our team responded to the Child Practice Review recently, which examined the sad case of Lola James, and took part in a number of media interviews. We are particularly concerned about the pace of change resulting from these Reviews. These investigations cover the most heinous actions against children and yet too often, actions from previous Child Practice Reviews are not yet fully implemented even years after they were published. We’re continuing to ask questions of Welsh Government to make sure that the new guidance expected this Autumn will deliver on the changes that are desperately needed. You can read our full statement here.
Exam Results
Llongyfarchiadau / congratulations to all who received their exam results this month. There is a lot of useful information available on Qualification Wales’ website about options and don’t forget about Welsh Government’s Young Person’s Guarantee – you can read more about this on the Government’s website: