The National Youth Agency: Four young trainers join The NYA activeinvolvement team

The four newcomers replace four outgoing young trainers, bringing phase one of the initiative to an end. Active Involvement officer Bill Badham said: "When we advertised there was a tremendous response, resulting in a very high quality application list. These represented the cream of young people's activism, and some of the individual stories were extraordinary.

We then had an interview process on 31 March that involved the outgoing trainers interviewing the newcomers. This meant that young people were involved throughout the recruitment process."

All four young trainers have already achieved much locally and have succeeded in creating opportunities for young people to speak out, or helped other young people and adults within their communities. For their two-year contract, the young trainers will follow a similar format to the outgoing trainers, who have collectively demonstrated the impact of the posts both with national and local government departments and with voluntary organisations. "We will work with them on a mix of speaking out on young people's issues and youth involvement at conferences and training events," said Badham.