A few months ago we realised that, despite one of our purposes as an organisation being creating a bridge between the youth and local decision makers, our dialogue with local councillors had died down.
We therefore made it our focus to rebuild these vital links in order to make sure that the voices of our local young people are heard!
Since making this a mission of ours, we've met with the Provost of Renfrewshire, Lorraine Cameron, and discussed the relationship between Renfrewshire's youth and their local government.
After having this meeting, we were invited to attend the most recent full council meeting which was an incredible insight into how the local government works as well as showing us how hard our local decision makers work. It was also great to chat to some of the local councillors at this meeting, it reassured us that decision makers want to have links with young people - not just the other way around!
Now, we are preparing a presentation on what we do at Renfrewshire Youth Voice for the upcoming council meeting in December!
We have been working with Renfrewshire Council to develop a participatory budgeting model through a youth steering group. The PB process constructed by Renfrewshire's young people was used to administer the new Celebrating Renfrewshire fund (previously the Youth Challenge fund) in Renfrewshire that used to reside under the Local Area Committee's remit.
Renfrewshire Youth Voice has taken a key role since the fund's inception, supporting and facilitating the council in its work with the steering group. The group developed the application for funds, promoted the fund, gave guidance and support throughout the application process and planned and ran a delivery event.
Having now established PB in Renfrewshire we continue to work alongside our partners to improve the fund and look forward to seeing how PN will develop even further in Renfrewshire in years to come.
On the 1st of November 2019 we hosted our 9th annual Positive About Youth Awards ceremony. The night saw numerous incredible and inspiring young people recognised for their talents and hard work.
We are looking forward to hosting our 10th awards ceremony marking ten years of celebrating and championing young people!
The nominations for this year's awards are currently closed. This page will be updated soon with the timeframe for lodging nominations for PAY 2020.
As part of 2019's theme about participation,
Renfrewshire Youth Voice visited four different local areas within Renfrewshire in a bid to afford those in hard to reach places the opportunity to participate in RYV projects.
The following areas were visited on the stated dates:
- July 4th at Bargarran Community Centre in Erskine ✅
- July 9th at the Go Zone in Glenburn ✅
- July 16th at the McKillop Institute in Lochwinnoch ✅
- July 17th at St Ninian's Parish Church in Ferguslie ✅