SCHOOL HIGHLIGHT… BOHUNT STUDENTS REPRESENT SCHOOL AT WOKINGHAM YOUTH COUNCIL Hi everyone! We are Emma and Anika and we want to tell you about the Wokingham Youth Council. Over the past month, Wokingham Borough Council has developed a group called the Wokingham Youth Council. It consists of two student representatives from each school in the area coming together to discuss and tackle issues that are important to the young people of Wokingham. This can be anything from climate change to mental wellbeing and the broader the ideas, the better. We both applied for this role and were delighted to find out that we were successful — meaning that we would represent Bohunt Wokingham within the council. The council also consists of some champion members which help to promote their social action of interest (such as cultural diversity, climate change, mental health etc.). Anika achieved the Climate Change champion member position. On 6 July, our first ever Youth Council meeting was held over Microsoft Teams and it was a great experience for all of us. It was especially nice to meet all of our fellow council members as well as having the brilliant opportunity to talk to our guests, former Prime Minister Theresa May and MP Matt Rodda.
progress with you. On 25 October, we were also very privileged to participate in the ITV News Meridian interview about COP26 and climate change. We were asked to discuss a huge range of topics surrounding climate change including our own experiences and personal changes as well as politician’s actions that affect local and global impacts. See the interview here: www.itv.com/news/ meridian/2021-04-19/catch-up-itv-news-meridian-thamesvalley-for-berkshire - oxfordshire -north-hampshire - andbuckinghamshire Overall, the Youth Council is a wonderful experience for everyone, helping develop our leadership and communication skills. We really look forward to our upcoming meetings and projects and really look forward to sharing our work with you! Social injustice and equality, climate change and poor mental health are topics that we are all very passionate about and the Youth Council plans to address these issues in future meetings. We hope to take action in these areas later in the school year, and help make the Borough of Wokingham a better and more inclusive place.
It was an honour to hear about their views and advice on leadership and their own stories on how they became involved with politics. We also had some interesting Q&A sessions with our guest speakers. Our question for Theresa May was: “What legacy did you hope to have left behind as former prime minister?” She shared with us her dedicated work towards improving societal issues and resolving to cut carbon emissions by 50% by the year 2030. We also learnt that, despite the disagreements between parties, politics is eventually about people — it’s about what they have, what they need and what they want. Our most recent meeting on 20 September (again, over Teams) we had a particular focus on climate change. Many game changers presented how they are tackling climate change in their community — from amazing aquaponics projects to vertical farming systems to even hearing from our local council about their plans for climate action in our area. Anika was also invited as a guest speaker within the council to present a climate change spotlight project for all the schools in the council to participate in. The Climate Action Project is a sixweek programme (starting from 27 September) which unites millions of students and teachers worldwide in understanding climate change and steps we can take to mitigate its effects. Bohunt Wokingham is currently working on this now, involving a variety of students from different year groups and we hope to complete it just after half term and can’t wait to share our
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