On November 18th members of the Year 8, 9 and 10 School Councils attended the World Children’s Day event in the Collaboration Station in Swansea. The event offered us an opportunity to hear about the work that Swansea Council have been doing with regards to improving the rights of children in our city.
At the start of the day, we heard from local councillors who talked to us about their accomplishments over the past year and what they have achieved in terms of their targets from previous events. They told us about the changes Swansea Council have made with regards to the environment, technology, safety in schools and mental health. Rodri Jones then spoke with us about how the council is working on listening to pupil’s voices and reflecting our opinions in official policy. Some of our members were so inspired that they signed up for the UK Youth Parliament to represent Swansea!
Throughout the day, we were given the opportunity to visit an interactive marketplace to learn about what different charities do in Swansea. It was especially nice to find that some of these organisations (such as Swansea Council Sport and Health and Barod) regularly come and talk in our school.
We went around the market stalls, and we found that the people were very nice and good at communicating with us. They listened to what we said, asked us questions about what we enjoy doing and they gave us lots of nice goodies. We also took part in some practical challenges including: running, lifting and puzzle solving. We had lots of interactive tasks available to us where we made cookies and bags.
Then the day was over, and it was time to head back to school and prepare a report to feedback to our individual Year Councils.
By John Amos Brown, Naomi Benjamin, Riley Cheetham, Lily Robinson, Jacob Thomas & Lily Ncube