Society & Politics

My election speech

My election speech

im putting this as a mytake cause it doesn't fit as a question

so like pls share thoughts

Incorporating the welsh language, collaborating with schools and growing the membership. This is what we should be focusing on. This is what I will be focusin on if you elect me as your vice chair.


I understand how you may not immediately want to vote for me. I’ve never been on my school’s council but as a student in year 11 states, “I personally feel as though the school council does very little in the way of benefiting the school itself - I mean what do they even do - Like actually - I’m intrigued”. Meanwhile I have been on the eco council and I am currently in the committee of year 11 students which has taken steps to create teaching guidelines and genuinely give students a voice. Moreover, I’m a member of the equality council: Hawl i Hunaniaeth which, according to a year 10 student i asked “creates a respected and safe community for minorities in the school” especially in this past term where for the first time I have been co-chairing alongside the chair candidate Mali.


As well as this, I get that I’m not in the environment subgroup or One Newport and maybe you believe the chair and vice chair should be present at these meetings - I disagree, I strongly oppose concentrating these roles in the same few people as it does not show the diversity the council should and does have. Furthermore, I feel that centralising these roles will alienate new members from the current ones, which should be a major concern of the chair and vice chair when one of the tasks the constitution states for the chair and vice chair is “To work on recruitment campaigns and strategies for the Youth Council.”


On this topic, I also would like to raise that in the previous term Hawl i Hunaniaeth’s membership has grown in Year 11 by 1 member, Year 7 by 9 members and Year 8 by 1 member. How I would replicate this growth in this council would majorly be through collaborating with schools, an idea that 70% of the people I surveyed agreed with. Look around, over half the frequent members are from Gwent Is Coed - we need to grow membership from Bassaleg, St Joseph’s, Rougemont and all the other schools in Newport so that we actually represent the entirety of the youth rather than a select group.


Of course, being inclusive to the welsh speaking youth is incredibly important as well. We need to encourage the use of the welsh language. An effective way of doing this in my opinion would be through putting welsh first in all situations - like what has been done in the logo and most forms - however you’ll notice that the minutes are not translated and, ironic that I mention this, the elected roles document was not translated into welsh as well as this, over half the people I surveyed (none of which were welsh speakers) agree with putting welsh first. I firmly believe we need to do our part in encouraging the language, and small steps like that would go a long way.


Naturally, we need to more clarity to all people in order to grow our membership. My biggest issue when i had an interest in joining this council was insecurity on how to join. I was under the impression that I’d need to submit an application online or something of that sort when of course that isn’t the case. If we were to introduce a non manditory application I believe it would provide more clarity to new members and make them feel more secure coming to their first meeting. Moreover, i would love to have an advertisement of the council in the riverfront stating the time and place of meetings to ensure that people know of us as I know for a fact I would’ve joined much sooner had i just known there was a youth council, 75% of the people I surveyed stated that they aren’t joining a youth council because they don’t know of one in their city. We also need to make more appearances publicly, for example at Pride in the Port, and I’m certain we’d see growth. And growth should be a major concern for the Chair and Vice Chair as dwindling membership is arguably our biggest issue


Incorporating the welsh language, collaborating with schools and growing the membership. If you want a guarantee of effective implementation of these ideas - vote for me.

My election speech
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