Rebecca Taylor, Lib Dem MEP for Yorkshire and the Humber took up the opportunity at Liberal Democrat conference to meet with dozens of Scouts from across the country to hear what they had to say about issues that affect them.
The annual ‘Scout Speak Up!’ events have been created for Scouts to attend the conferences and are unique in the conference calendar. They are entirely youth led, giving young people the opportunity to debate with politicians the issues that really matter to young people today.
Hannah Winslade, an Explorer Scout said, “It’s great that young people have the opportunity to tell politicians what we think, and for them to listen. It is important that young people have a say, and events like today’s is a great step forward. As a Scout it is important for me to get involved and help inspire others to do so too.”
Issues discussed this weekend included proposed changes to GCSEs, the political situation in Syria and the perception of young people in the media.
Rebecca Taylor was also told by the young people she spoke to how Scouting enriches their lives and their local communities. Many talked about how the skills they’ve learned in Scouting have helped them to find employment and supported their applications to university and college.
Rebecca said, “I really enjoyed the ‘Scouts Speak Up!’ event during the conference in Brighton. It was a real conference highlight. It was great to hear what young people had to say and to discuss the issues of the day with them. I was pleased to hear their hopes for the future, such as taking up apprenticeships or studying abroad.”
ENDS
For more information please contact Sam Mowbray at 02084337215 or sam.mowbray@scouts.org.uk
About Scouting
- The Scout Association was founded on 1st August 1907.
- Adventure is at the core of Scouting, and the Association passionately believes in helping their members fulfil their full physical, intellectual social and spiritual potentials by working in teams, learning by doing and thinking for themselves.
- Over 200 activities are offered by Scouting around the UK, made possible by the efforts of 90,000 voluntary adult leaders. This has helped make Scouting the largest co-educational youth Movement in the country.
- One of the challenges that the Scout Movement faces is finding more volunteers to plug the current gap. At present there are more than 33,000 young people on waiting lists as more and more young people want to experience the adventure of Scouting.
- Adults working in Scouting contribute in excess of 364 million hours of voluntary work each year to their local communities.
- The number of volunteers working for Scouting is bigger than the combined workforces of the BBC (24,000) and McDonalds (67,000) put together.
- Worldwide Scouting has 28 million members both male and female and operates in nearly every country in the world.