Today we had a visit from Matt Johnston who represents Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council Young Peoples Services as part of Youth Election Week 2019.
Matt came in and set up a stand outside the dining hall to talk to students about the Youth Elections and to inform them about the young candidates for our area and their individual policies. The idea is to encourage our pupils to think about participating in the local democratic process and to either stand as candidates or vote for other young people. Our students were given the opportunity to watch campaign videos for each of this year’s candidates in form time so that they could then make an informed decision when it came to voting.
Young People’s Services (YPS) facilitates the annual youth election process within Blackburn with Darwen. All secondary schools, colleges and youth clubs are invited to participate in this process. During youth election week Monday 28th January to Friday 8th Feb all young people aged between 11 – 19 years across the Borough will have the opportunity to vote. Candidates have been nominated from schools, colleges and youth clubs.
They would like all schools to promote this participation element of delivery to enable young people to have the opportunity to vote. Many schools already have their own councils/forums and by actively supporting the annual youth elections, schools are supporting their pupils in the democracy process and attaining the participation element of the curriculum.
YPS can support schools at various levels – the school can lead the process or allow them to lead on their behalf and they will pick up all the workload and organisation. YPS can deliver this by playing the candidates DVD speech’s during assemblies and then young people can vote when leaving and YPS staff will facilitate and support this voting process.
The announcement of the next BwD Youth MP and two deputies will be announced on Monday 11th February. If any young person is interested in joining BwD Youth forum please get in touch at https://www.facebook.com/BWDYoungPeoplesServices/?fref=ts#
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