On Monday (21/11/16) I attended an event in Church House Conference Centre and then the House of Commons to celebrate #iwillWeek. At this event they were celebrating the announcement of 50 new ambassadors and I was lucky enough to have been selected as one of those 50 volunteers. You can see how I got to this point in this blog post. Now I want to talk a bit about the event on Monday now that I can finally announce the other thing that happened that day. Soon, I will also put up a post about my plans from here for developing my own social action and promoting social action for young people.
What happened on Monday?
I woke up early to travel down to London for the event. A fairly stress free journey down to London with only tiny delay and so the day started off well. When I arrived into London. At the station I met my plus one for the event, Julie from Fixers UK. Julie was the broadcast researcher when my project was broadcast on ITV Wales and she was one of my only contact left in Fixers. Because it Fixers were one of the organisations that really kick-started my social action I had decided I wanted them to be there with me on the day. I also knew of a few other people going who I volunteer with at the NSPCC so we met up wth them on the way and we were all very excited for the day ahead. We headed to Church House Conference Centre to start the day.
The room we were in was amazing and the picture above is one of the roof in the room we were in and this is one of my favourite photos I took. We got to sit and chat for a while getting to know people and catching up with the other people I knew! Then it was time for our buffet lunch. My fussy eating did not play in my favour but I found some nice things to eat in the end. The rocky road they had was absolutely amazing and so so rich.. it’s making me hungry just thinking about it!
After a few welcoming speeches the new ambassadors and our plus ones were separated. Our plus ones went up to the balcony and quite honestly I have no idea what they did so I can’t tell you that part of it. We were split into small groups and has some little workshops so I will take you through what I learnt/did in them. On a side note my group (as was the entire room actually)was full of some really inspirational young people involved in such a variety of social action projects.
Our first workshop was with Step Up To Serve’s Young Trustee, Chloe Donovan who told us a bit about how she got to being where she is before we moved onto the activity. Our challenge was to think of some of the root causes as to why only 4/10 young people aged 10-20 take part in social action and what could be done to overcome these barriers. We realised that there was quite a few reasons why young people may not take part including a lack of opportunities that would suit them in their area, lack of family support and not seeing the benefits. We decided that there were many ways this could be overcome including wing sure that schools advocated social action, parents are made aware abut the benefits and how we as ambassadors can show the reality of the positive effects social action can have on the community and also the individual.
Then it was time to move on – Our second workshop was with Alice from The Nicest Job In Britain who was showing is the many benefits of blogging. We did a little quiz on blogging/vlogging and learnt some surprising facts about it. She gave us her top tips for blogging and how to get started. I had the opportunity to tell her about my blog and the content I make and others in our group also talked about their blogs or blog ideas. I really loved one of her top tips which was to keep it positive as we already have enough negativity in the world. I stand by this and really do try to make my posts as positive as they possibly can be showing hope even with the most challenging topics. It also made me want to make sure that that continues on this blog and that it can offer some positivity to others and to me in the darkest of times. Her story was incredible and I now really want The Nicest Job In Britain!!
Next workshop was one with a man from the Eden Project who told us about their ‘Big Lunch” project where they gather communities to feed the community spirit. I am now really interested in holding a Big Lunch so we’ll have to see if I can manage to organise one as it is right in the middle of my exam period this year! It seems like such an awesome event to have thought and great to really boost community spirit. During this workshop we also discussed how often people who help others don’t always get any recognition for doing so which is completely fine but to some can be frustrating. We talked about making sure to recognise those who inspired us in the hope they would recognise those who inspired them to keep the chain going. Hearing the difference you have made can make you want to carry on even more!
Our final workshop was with Saeed Atcha, another of the Young Trustees of Step Up To Serve. He didn’t tell us much about how he got being where he is as he was doing a speech later in the day. We jumped straight in and were discussing our roles as #iwill ambassadors and what we could do to inspire and create change in our communities. This was a really motivating discussion and it got me thinking about where I got from here and how I can keep creating change. We each pledged a thing we could do and I will discuss that in my next blog post.
After these workshops drew to a close we rejoined our plus ones and had an opportunity to chat and network again before it was time to get our #iwill ambassador certificates. These certificates were presented to us by Professor James Arthur (Director of Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues) and Adele Roberts (Radio 1 DJ) who we had our pictures taken with! We then had some group photos and did my first ever proper Mannequin Challenge. (I still don’t understand where that trend started!)
Then it was time to move over to the House of Commons for the reception. After waiting in a queue for what felt like forever but while having a lovely chat with everyone we finally got in! While in the queue though I was talking to Julie about the start of my Fixers project and we were saying that was only just over a year ago which is crazy as it honestly feels like so much longer when I consider how much has happened in the past year! This past year really has been crazy but looking back I really am proud of how far I have come during that time and I can’t wait to see what the next year brings!
At the House of Commons we again had lots of time to network with the other ambassadors and the professionals in the room before a few speeches were made about the #iwill campaign which were great to listen to (there was also cake involved!)
After a few of the speeches, 4 of the other ambassadors and me met with some people from the Office For Civil Service. We were to be given the Prime Minister’s Points of Light awards at the event ready for the announcements during the week. I felt so honoured to have received the award which you can read more about it on my page here and to have the privilege of sharing the occasion with some other truly inspiring young people! We were presented our certificates by Rob Wilson MP and pictures were taken ready for our awards to be announced during the week. I was so speechless when I was told about this award as I honestly never expect any recognition for anything I do and just do it because I’m so passionate about helping others and making a difference. Plus helping others really has helped me in terms of my mental wellbeing which is an amazing added bonus!
Then some more networking before the final speeches! There were some really great speeches but one in particular stuck with which was Young Trustee Luke Rees’s speech! He spoke of how sporting volunteering really helped his mental health and his journey was just incredible! I felt so inspired and his message of the benefits on mental health is similar to my message too. Seeing how much he had accomplished made me even more determined to carry on doing what I’m doing.
And that was it an incredible, inspiring but very tiring day was over.. well not quite I had a train journey to go which was a lot easier said than done. That day the weather had been horrendous with tracks and stations flooded and so trains were cancelled and delayed. Finally I managed to get on a train back to university thinking I would be back in a few hours. Over 5 hours at 1:30am, I finally got back after what should have been a two hour journey. I got into bed and was asleep almost instantly! That just goes to show how exhausted I was but it was honestly a very inspiring day and I met lots of people who I really do hope I stay in contact with. Most importantly it motivated me to carry on with everything I do and always strive for bigger things! Anything you set your mind t can be accomplished and age is no barrier!
We can beat this!
We can beat this! 