Newham runs its first Youth Takeover Day
Newham Council organised Youth Takeover Day, giving young people the opportunity to shadow council officers and take on key decision-making positions.
Young people joined council officers in the Communications team on 28 October and took over Newham youth zones, including those run by local voluntary sector organisations, to experience the adult world of work for a day.
One young person said: “I created some resources for one of the teachers and was able to watch the teaching of an English class. I was surprised at how little English the students spoke and realised how hard it must be to teach them.
Another young person who spent the day with the Renewal Programme, a local voluntary sector organisation who also runs one of the borough’s Youth Zones, said: “I really enjoyed the day, especially learning about how the Renewal Programme receives funding.
“I realised that the people in this organisation work really hard to support the community and I would definitely consider working in a charity as a career choice.”
Katrin Vangelova, Brighter Futures and Youth Empowerment Service Communications Officer, invited two young people to shadow her.
Katrin said: “It was quite an exhilarating experience having young people shadow me. Considering my role at the council is to find ways to better connect with them, it was really useful to hear their thoughts, aspirations and the different trends in their generation.
“This, I believe, is a clear example of how involving them in the council’s work and giving them the chance to express their thoughts on it, helps the organisation too.”
Jas Hothi, Service Manager for the Youth Empowerment Service, said: “We have learnt a lot from this year’s pilot event which was based on ‘The Takeover Challenge’, a yearly event launched in 2007 by the Office of the Children’s Commissioner for England.
“We aim to scale up to a much larger one next year, involving more young people and a wider range of ‘take-over’ opportunities. We hope more council officers will get involved,”
For more information, read the associated article in the Newham Recorder.