ARCHIVED news story
Youth action makes it into Guardian Society
Released on 19 July 2006
Unless we start effectively engaging with them, in 25 years' time nobody will be voting
Vivienne Clifford-Jackson, Council Leader
One of the most creative initiatives to emerge from work with young people in Norfolk has made it into the influential Guardian newspaper Society section.
Last year, a group of five young people from across Norfolk and five county councillors took photos of their daily lives, using mobile phone cameras, supplied by O2, and posted them on a website. They called it Life Swap.
It has now become a national project with young people from Beacon councils across the country involved in youth engagement sharing photos and notes on their lives, to swap experiences.
Now it has caught the attention of the national media. Life Swap features in today's Guardian newspaper Society section. South Norfolk Council Leader Vivienne Clifford-Jackson is interviewed, along with County Councillor Daniel Cox and Norfolk County Council deputy co-ordinator for active citizenship, Fran Farrar.
Cllr Clifford-Jackson, who champions the cause of young people across the county and in Government circles is ambitious for young people. Earlier this year, she collected a Beacon status award from the Government on behalf of South Norfolk Council and Norfolk County Council.
She tells the Guardian that she is keen for young people in South Norfolk to have their own Cabinet and Budget.
She said:
"Unless we start effectively engaging with them, in 25 years' time nobody will be voting."
Cllr Daniel Cox has been a strong supporter of the initiative and is heavily involved every year in Local Democracy Week events and activities with young people.
He told the Guardian that the Life Swap project has helped to break down barriers and remove "the tags and the titles" between young people and local politicians
The Life Swap project is also a way of showing what it is like living in rural South Norfolk compared to Wakefield or Lewisham.
For more information, and to see the pictures on the Life Swap site go to www.beaconlifeswap.org.uk or see Wednesday's Guardian newspaper.
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