Maryam provides Youth Voice for the West Midlands

On 27th January Envision grad Maryam Saddiq gave a speech at an event hosted by the National Children's Bureau at Millennium Point.

The event was designed to explore the theme of how to effectively involve young people in solutions for sustainable living and climate change agendas.  The event brought together around 50 decision makers from key organisations from across the West Midlands including Birmingham City Council and Sustainability West Midlands. 

Maryam spoke about the activities that she has lead on as part of Envision, which included actively coming up with sustainable solutions at her college Joseph Chamberlain College on the issues of waste and climate change, such as dressing up in rubbish and telling other students about recycling!

She also gave her perspective on how best to engage young people on the issues of sustainability and climate change and was quizzed by the audience who are all looking to meaningfully engage young people in their decision making process.

Maryam said, "It was pleasant to gain an adult’s perspective upon youth involvement. It is rather perplexing as to why all delegates had to be adults (no offence intended to those adults!) In such times face to face networking still triumphs rather than having our opinions conveyed through publications."

The delegates were all impressed with Maryam’s passion and enthusiasm on the issue of climate change and she was also presented with a certificate of recognition and gift vouchers for her input into the event.

Liz Zachary, Project Development Officer at NCB said, "It was really great to have Maryam at the event. She brought a much needed youth voice and the delegates were all really interested to hear her share her story."

Maryam is now launching a campaign that will give city kids the chance to get more into the outdoors...  If you want to get involved in Maryam’s campaign or want to hear more about sustainiability or climate change events like this, then just e-mail anneka@envision.org.uk.