Nia-Rose talks youth voice, virtual guiding and the Welsh Youth Parliament

Hello everybody my name is Nia-Rose Evans, I am the Welsh Youth Parliament member for Girlguiding Cymru and I am a member of 2nd Mumbles Rangers.

I hope you are all okay and safe and well during this uncertain time. Perhaps if your unit is doing zoom or Skype meetings you are enjoying them and keeping in touch with each other. My unit has been doing weekly zoom meetings which have been great fun and I have found doing interest and challenge badges good fun and keeps me busy!

I hope to be able to meet with some of you in the future so that I can tell you all about the work which the Welsh Youth Parliament are doing and to gain your opinions about issues which matter to you. However in the meantime, I would like to tell you about some of the work which I have been involved with so far.

The three topics we have chosen to get involved with are Life Skills in the Curriculum, Emotional and Mental Health and Littering and Plastic Waste. You can our debates from the Chamber in the Senedd on the Welsh Youth Parliament Youtube channel - check them out!

I have chosen to be part of the Emotional and Mental Health Committee as it is a topic and issue that I feel passionate and strongly about and I believe that it is an important issue that needs to be addressed.

Life Skills in the Curriculum committee events have taken place across Wales to gather and collect young peoples’ opinions on what life skills they feel should be included into the new curriculum. One of these events was located in Swansea, where I helped run.

The recommendation was for more life skills to be incorporated into the curriculum such as budgeting. The Emotional and Mental Health committee has started to plan an event to gather information on what young people think needs to be changed.

We have also released a survey for you to complete and I would ask you all to have a look so that your opinions can be taken into account, see link below!

The Littering and Plastics Waste committee have had several different events and they are also hoping to release a survey to obtain your opinions. I’m one of 60 WYP members and we meet together every 6- 8 months where we discuss what we have been doing and the opinions of young people from across Wales. We also talk about how each committee will move forward and how as a Welsh Youth Parliament we can evolve.

We have recently had a zoom call meeting where we looked at what each of the committees have achieved and we are hoping to be able to have separate meetings in due course.

I would love to hear from as many of my Girguiding family as I can so that I can obtain your opinions and feed them into my meetings. You can contact me via my email: niarose_evans@hotmail.com

Follow me on twitter: @WYPMGirlguiding or my instagram @nia_rose_evans.wyp.

In the meantime, I hope you all keep safe and keep smiling!!!