Participation in Practice: Stop the Youth Quake MP lobbying campaign
Friday, April 15, 2011
Fifty young people from across the country visited the Houses of Parliament at the end of March to lobby MPs about the effect that cuts are having on youth volunteering opportunities.
The event was organised by Youth Action Network as part of its Stop the Youth Quake campaign, which aims to draw attention to the lack of national and local funding for youth volunteering beyond March 2011.
According to Youth Action Network, 90 per cent of these opportunities are likely to disappear as a result of government cuts.
Faizan Tassawar, 19, a Vinvolved volunteer from Woking in Surrey, was among the young people to take part in the event. He was part of a delegation of young people who met Labour's shadow children's minister Toby Perkins. "There were around eight of us from Surrey who met him in his office," says Faizan. "I told him about the work I'd done through the Vinvolved project over the past couple of years and explained why I thought it was so important.
"He listened to what we had to say and seemed genuinely sympathetic to what has been happening. He even agreed to sign our Stop the Youth Quake postcard."
The group also discussed the government's proposed National Citizen Service with Perkins and told him why they thought it was unfair to make money available to a scheme that only works with 16-year-olds.
Other young people who took part in the event met their own MPs to talk about the impact of cuts on youth volunteering in their area.
Faizan hopes the campaign will lead to the continuation of youth volunteering initiatives. "The Vinvolved programme has helped show that young people can do good work when they're given the funding and the chance," he says.
