Aylesbury’s young people get vocal to find out what matters most to their peers

Young people in Aylesbury have been working on a project to find out more about what matters most to their peers.

The Youth Views initiative is a joint partnership project between Aylesbury Youth Action and the Cloudy Foundation, funded by the Aylesbury Community Board.

The board wanted to further understand the needs of young people in the local area and after a discussion with Youth Action, this project has been developed.

In the first phase of the project which took place earlier this month, young people got together at the Queens Park Centre.

They were divided into three groups – 11 to 14s, 15 to 18s and 19 to 24s and discussed topics including health and wellbeing, the environment, safety, the economy and life skills.

The aim was for the young people to think specifically about the topics that should be covered and how questions should be phrased to ask the wider population of young people in the area when the second phase of the project kicks off.

Phase two of the project will run this week as teams of students from Bucks University Technical College (BUTC) take part in a Tech Lab event.

The students will be tasked with creating an app and accompanying marketing campaign to promote the Youth Views survey across Aylesbury. The survey will be populated by the questions and topics the young people from Phase 1 of the project identified.

At the end of the week-long challenge the teams will exhibit and present their project concepts to a panel of judges before a winner is chosen.

The winning team's concept will be fully developed and distributed for use to gauge and identify the needs of young people in the local area.

Mark Winn, chairman of the Aylesbury Community Board said: “It is wonderful to see all these young people getting so actively involved in this project and it's great to link up with BUTC and help young people studying there to learn skills on a live project that they can use in the future. I can't wait to see the ideas they come up with.

"As a community board we want to make sure we are listening to the voices of all our residents, including our young people.

"We'd like to thank all those who have taken part and hope that by working in partnership with young people, with the Cloudy Foundation and Aylesbury Youth Action we will be able to come up with a fabulous tool to help us gain the views and identify the needs of a wide range of younger people in our local area.”

Anita Cranmer, cabinet member for education and children's services said: "I think this is a great project that Aylesbury Community Board is supporting. Young people are key members of our communities and it is important that they get the opportunity to speak up and be listened to."

If you would like more information on the Youth Views project or to get involved visit Youth Views – Cloudy.