Make Your Mark 2017

The results from the Make Your Mark ballot 2017 are in ...

A total of 4577 young people across the Vale of Glamorgan voted in this year's campaign either within their schools, youth clubs or youth organisations.  First of all a big thank you to those who voted, but also members of the Vale Youth Forum and Youth Action Groups in Penarth, Barry and Llantwit, who encouraged young people to get involved and vote for their top issue.

As Members of the UK Youth Parliament (MYP) we will do our best to ensure decision-makers take the results on board.  We are currently writing a report on the campaign and the results and we will then decide how we will be working on the most important topics voted for by young people across the Vale.

So what was the most important issue to young people in the Vale of Glamorgan? 

Topic	Number of Votes
A curriculum to prepare us for life	850
Votes at 16	459
Protect LGBT+ People	560
Support for Young Carers	145
Transport	746
First aid Education for all young people	396
Mental Health	479
Make the invisible visible	226
Protect schools budgets from damaging cuts	159
Work experience hubs  for 11-18 year olds	557
Total	4577

The UK wide results are yet to be announced, but they will be debated at the UK Youth Parliament Annual Sitting at Westminster in November, where a national priority will be voted on.

We will also be working on some of the issues on a more local level through the Vale Youth Forum.  We are currently discussing this at our meeting tonight and it looks like we are likely to focus on transport.

We promise to keep you updated.

Thanks,
Ushenka (MYP) & Ben (DMYP)

The results are in!

So 2016 was the second year young people involved in participation projects in the Vale took part in the Make Your Mark campaign.  The Make Your Mark campaign is run by the British Youth Council across the UK and the results are used to find out the top issues for young people which are later debated and voted on at UK Youth Parliament.

This year in the Vale we collected 4136 Make Your Mark ballots and the Vale was the top performing Local Authority in Wales - woop woop! This could not have been achieved without the hard work of members of Penarth Youth Action, Barry Youth Action, Llantwit Youth Council and the Vale Youth Forum whilst encouraging young people to take part in the ballot not to mention the support from Barry Comp, Bryn Hafren and Cowbridge Comp!   

So what did young people vote for and what are the top issues for young people in the Vale?   

• A curriculum to prepare us for life - 804
• Votes at 16 - 560
• Transport - 508 
• First aid education for all - 469 
• Stop cuts that affect the NHS - 448
• Mental Health - 440
• Tackling racism and religious discrimination - 429
• Body Image - 171
• Raising Awareness of Sexual Harassment in schools - 164
• Fund our youth services, don't cut them - 143    

The Royal Opening of the 5th NAfW

On Tuesday 7th June, members of the Vale Youth Cabinet, Vale Youth Forum, Llantwit Youth Council, Barry Youth Action and Penarth Youth Action attended the Royal Opening of the fifth National Assembly for Wales where we represented young people from the Vale of Glamorgan. 

The day started off with the rigorous security process that we all had to go through and then we were greeted by Assembly staff who gave us visitor passes and Welsh flags.  Walking single file to the Senedd, we took our places outside the Senedd and we were right at the front! We watched the soldiers march into position with the band playing them in.  The loudest part was definitely the 21 gun salute to mark the arrival of the Queen.  The most important part of the day was seeing the Queen walk right past us, along with the Duke of Edinburgh, the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall. 

The experience of watching the Royal Family walking past us was unreal and I none of us will forget it.  Daley even got to give his Welsh flag to the Prince of Wales!  The crowd roared and cheered and we even made it on the TV screens.  You can watch highlights of the ceremony here, don't forget to look out for us waving our flags!