Getting Brent Youth Parliament involved in climate change issue

BCACC supporters - I am in disguise!

 In my role as Chair of Brent Campaign Against Climate Change I went with Jeff Bartley of Brent Council to talk to the Youth Parliament.

Along with the College of North West London we are planning a Conference on Climate Change for 6th formers and college students. The Conference will take place in March 2013 and we  want to get young people involved in the planning.  It is essential that we have their ideas at an early stage so that the Conference is participative and involving and based on young peoples' concerns.

I introduced the idea and Jeff gave a PowerPoint presentation on the plans so far. BYP members expressed support for a debate to be included in the day and like the idea of  hands on experience with green technologies. Younger members aged 11 and 12 had plenty of comments and contributions as well as their older colleagues and some fundamental questions were asked including 'Is the aim to prevent climate change or deal with its impact?' and 'What has careers advice got to do with climate change?' 

We hope to work on a separate event for primary schools to take place in Autumn this year.

Years ago I was involved in the group which set up the Youth Parliament and so it was good to see it in action. The Parliament reflected Brent's diversity but girls predominated today - perhaps because of the football match happening just down the road at the same time!