BKYP Public Meeting
MYPs from BKYP reported back on their work so far at the Parliament's third public meeting since the elections in 2007. The meeting was held in City Hall and saw the MYPs reporting back to young people, Councillors, representatives from the Police and the local media.
The MYPs explained how their work had been going on each constituency's three priorities whch were set by young people at the constituency conferences following the last elections.
Bradford North
MYPs Qasim Malik and Jonathan Cherkowski explained that they had just completed an online survey of over 500 young people to find out their views on local public transport. They will be reporting their findings to the Council's Champions for Children Board on Tuesday 24th June.
Hina Rasheed told the meeting that the MYPs had visited the Ravenscliffe area to assess the needs of the area in terms of their priority to improve personal safety for young people. She told the meeting the lighting in the area had already been improved so the MYPs decided the most pressing need was to tackle the dumping of rubbish in the area so they have contacted the Coucnil's Environmental Task Force to help clean up the area.
Tahirah Sherriff explainded that the group has visitied the Greenway area to note down the areas that needed cleaning up and had discovered that poor lighting in the area was more of a problem. The MYPs noted down the lights that needed repairing and contacted the Council to ask them to fix the problems.
Bradford West
Bradford West MYP and assistant chair of the meeting Jonathan Crouch told the meeting how the Bradford West MYPs had secured £3400 funding from Parks and Landscapes to improve Haworth Road Park. He told the meeting that the improvements had now been completed and the park was looking much better.
Tayyab Razak passionately explained how the MYPs had secured funding for a youth shelter in Victoria Park in Clayton but had been stopped at the last minute by local objections. He explained that although the youth shelter project had been rejected the MYPs still had £5000 funding and are working with local young people to work out what to do with the money.
Bradford South
MYPs Thomas Honey and Thomas Illingworth gave an update on their efforts to get a Multi Activity Community Area (MACA) in Harold Park. The explained that the had made links with the Friends of Harold Park group in order to try to convince local people that the scheme was a good idea.
Piers Telemacque, who was also chairing the meeting, gave an update on attempts to open up the community centre in Bierley to young people. He explained that other projects have been their main focus but that the MYPs are planning a fun day later in the year to build relationships in the local comunity in the hope that this will help things move forward.
MYP Seetal Mistry and volunteer Qasim Rehman told the meeting that they were well on the way to getting a MACA in Russell Park in Queensbury. They explained how they had worked with the Youth Service to set up a youth forum in the area to involve local young people in the process and we working with Parks and Landscapes to decide on a location for the MACA.
Keighley
Keighley MYPs Ibrar Arshad and Daisy Dooks were joined by Senior MYP Wasim Ahmed to report back on their work so far. They explained that they had secured £2500 funding from Streets Ahead to place a new welcome stone near the 5 The Drive youth project in Bracken Bank. The stone was placed with the help of local people and the area around was planted with new flowers in the hope of improving the look of the area and increasing comunity pride.
The MYPs explained that they are now working on their second priority which is to address racism in Keighley. The MYPs are planning to make a film entitled 'Is It Here?' They hope the film will get people talking about racism and help to find solutions to the problems.
The final priority for the MYPs is to have an envronmental day in Keighley town centre which will include a community clean up and possibly a competition to design a bin. It is all aimed at reducing litter in Keighley town centre.
Shipley
The Shipley MYPs presented their feeback in the form of a rap:
This is the Shipley constituency
Jordan, Aasim, Jack and Abi
We saw Foster Park and we were there to change
Some people thought we were quite strange
We have had may ideas football, bins and lights
The future of youth is in our sights
A football tournament we are going to do
With the help of the Denholm Crew
Our cohesion event is quite sound
Please sit up and we will tour you around
Just sit back and have a laugh
And we will make sure you are looked after by our staff
The Shipley Kirkgate centre is the venue
Pizza and juice is on the menu
There is lots going on right from the start
Drumming, filming and performing art
June 22nd is the date
Come along and make some more mates
Here we are we will give it a shot
To bring us togehter disability or not!
Once we have done Myrtle Park
We will have hit our mark
Now we have the time listen and stay
The floor is open for Q and A.
Also...
The meeting also saw Bradford Youth Arts Network perform a piece from a drama production that they are taking to the Edinburgh Festival. The drama raises issues about knife crime, child poverty and racism as well as a number of other important issues. BKYP wishes them luck at the Edinburgh Festival!
