Young people can now cast their vote to elect 12 members to the newly restructured Cornwall Youth Council.
Voting is taking place in 17 schools and five college campuses with 17,000 votes expected to be cast making this Cornwall’s biggest ever youth election.
As well as the youth council elections, schools and young people are also being asked to take part in a national vote called Make Your Mark which asks them what the most important issues are for young people in the UK.
Cornwall Youth Council is part of Cornwall Council and exists to make sure the voices of children and young people are heard and taken seriously, as stated in Article 12 of the UNCRC.
Cornwall Council’s Children’s Rights team is now encouraging young people across all our communities to get involved and cast their vote, with the support of their teachers, parents and carers.
Cllr Barbara Ellenbroek, cabinet member for children and families at Cornwall Council, said:
“Cornwall Youth Council is a brilliant organisation that makes a real difference in shaping the future of Cornwall for children and young people.
“I hope everyone has fun reading the manifestos of the candidates and finding out what each stands for before casting their vote. I’d also urge all the teachers, mums, dads and carers out there to do whatever they can to help make Cornwall’s biggest ever youth election a huge success.”
The existing youth council members reviewed their current membership and roles and voted to restructure to be more representative from both a geographic and diversity perspective.
The first part of this restructure is to elect 12 young people from the six constituent areas in Cornwall.
To enable fairness and non-bias all candidates will remain anonymous and young people will vote on manifesto summaries.
This year, Members of Youth Parliament will be elected once the Cornwall Youth Council elections have taken place and those elected members will then elect MYPs.
There are a range of roles that will be available from March 2024:
- Community Seat – From April 2024 we will be offering seats to representative groups.
- Associate member – These will be in place from March 2024 and are a more casual member.
- Peer Mentor – From March 2024 we will be opening for young people to register to take on a peer mentor role. This role will be to support and develop the elected members.
- Communications team – We currently have a communications team that have done a lot of hard work. We will be relaunching this in March 2024. This will enable children and young people across Cornwall to know what Youth Council are doing and have a say in what they are doing.
Barbara added: “I am extremely proud of the way our youth council holds this local authority to account and lets us know what we do right, what we do wrong, and what we need to be focusing on more.
“This is all part of the council’s pledge to make Cornwall a brilliant place to be a child and grow up, and we can only do that by listening to and working closely with young people themselves.”
This is a great opportunity for young people to get involved in democracy and we would like to encourage 16–18-year-olds to register as an “attainer” on the electoral roll. By registering in advance, it means you are already on the electoral roll when you turn 18. To find out more and to register follow this link: Register to vote - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
To find out more and get involved email youthcouncil@cornwall.gov.uk
For more information visit the British Youth Council website.
You can also find out more about children’s rights in Cornwall on the council’s dedicated web pages.
Press release issued on January 29, 2024.
