Engaged individuals
In order to understand citizenship, we believe individuals should be involved in the practical aspects of it. For example, analysing situations, reflecting on them and making appropriate decisions.
Young people need to practise these sorts of scenarios, and that's why we run a variety of projects and programmes. Finding out first-hand the effects of their involvement is a powerful lesson - and, we believe, one that brings a lot of success.
The skills and tools the young people learn during their experience will stay with them. The engagement process starts with these projects and will be built on by the individual throughout their lives.
Programmes we run include Youth Act, which brings together young people to look at issues affecting their community and developing campaigns to tackle them. Volunteering and charity are popular and working in a team to support young refugees and asylum seekers provides a huge learning curve.
In the next few years we would like to encourage more young people to take part in these activities. The value to the individuals and the impact of their work in the communities served is well worthwhile.
We would like to further investigate which skills can be developed in order to create a more engaged population. Added to this, a debate led by young people on how their new skills will impact society would be persuasive to others as yet not engaged.
Those young people who have taken part in our projects, in turn, often enjoy our youth leadership programmes. We would like to foster closer ties with policy-influencers and practitioners with these emerging leaders.
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