November 21st-25th is #iwill Week 2022, bringing youth activists, supporters and partners together to learn, showcase and celebrate ‘pulling together for youth social action’. This includes inspiring debates and encouraging meaningful conversations around how to support youth social action into 2023. This video explains the vision of the #iwill Movement, through the voices of #young #iwill ambassadors:
Principle Consulting believes that all children and young people should be empowered to make a positive difference on the issues that affect their lives, their communities and broader society. As part of #iwill Week 2022, we are therefore proud to adopt the Power of Youth Charter, committing to growing the power of youth in the following areas:
We will create opportunities that empower more young people, particularly from low-income and ethnic minority backgrounds, to be positive changemakers. Examples: incorporate youth social action into your organisational strategy; focus on creating more youth social action opportunities through your funding programmes; incorporate youth social action into our training or curriculum programmes.
What will Principle Consulting do?
The core work of Principle Consulting is helping charities and socially-driven organisations achieve change through policy, public affairs and campaigns, during which we have been proud to support the #iwill movement as part of our work with Volunteering Matters in 2021-22. However, we also operate as a social enterprise – this means any profits we generate are reinvested in the organisation and fund our widening access programmes, two of which presently emphasise helping young people access politics:
We pledge to continue to deepen our efforts to ensure our widening-access internship in particular is truly accessible and promoted to people from backgrounds who are often less able to obtain vital opportunities like this to kickstart their careers. This will include working with #iwill on ways to encourage #iwill ambassadors or other social-minded young people to apply for our internships and where useful, we will seek to offer mentorship or career advice to young people involved in social action.
We will offer opportunities for young people, particularly from low-income and ethnic minority backgrounds, to participate in decision-making, leading and shaping both the activities they are involved in and wider organisational decisions. Examples: recruit young trustees under 25; set-up a youth advisory group or shadow youth board; involve young people in grant-making or recruitment panels.
What will Principle Consulting do?
We will seek to ensure both our widening-access internship and work experience programme are designed to be as valuable as possible to the young people evolved, by gathering and implementing feedback on our work experience scheme and by continuing to ensure we work with our interns to evaluate their experiences and mentor them in their next steps.
Further, we agree that the mantra of ‘nothing about us without us’ can ensure that policies and processes are guided by diverse perspectives and lived experiences. In the course of our work advising charities that do work involving or impacting young people, we will always aim to ensure their voices and experiences are at the fore front of policy and campaigns wherever possible.
We will work collaboratively with other organisations to create more high-quality opportunities, reach young people from low- income and ethnic minority backgrounds to take part, share learning and achieve shared goals. Examples: work with schools, colleges and youth groups to reach more young people; work with funding organisations to create more opportunities; create resources that support others to empower young people.
What will Principle Consulting do?
We are proud to have worked with several youth charities and supported their campaigns, and to have built a partnership with a London college to involve students who have English as an alternative language in our experience scheme. We will forge further links with youth organisations that will help us improve the accessibility of our internship scheme to new groups of youth people with a drive for social change.
Further, in the course of our work advising charities that do work involving or impacting young people, we help ensure their voices and experiences are fore-fronted in policy and campaigns where possible.
We will capture and share insights, stories and data on how we are working with young people, and the positive impact this has on them, their communities and our organisation. Examples: report your progress annually through the power of youth index; incorporate evidence into your annual reviews and evaluation reports; focus gathering evidence on community impact.
What will Principle Consulting do?
Data and evidence on youth work and social action are vital to ensure that organisations created by or for young people can both maximise and shout about the good that they do. Wherever possible in our work with youth sector charities, we advise them on data collection, case studies and the promotion of these to the wider public and people in our power through campaigns. We also work to highlight the experiences of young people involved in our current widening access work, for example by collecting feedback from our interns.
We will use our communication channels to advocate for and celebrate young people as positive and powerful changemakers. Examples: create opportunities for young people to takeover your communication channels; give young people a platform at your meetings and events give young people awards, e.g. ‘young volunteer of the year’.
What will Principle Consulting do?
As part of our work experience programme, we already support them to blog about their life experiences and issues they care about and push this out through our Principle site and social media channels, but will give them more opportunity to be involved this process and learn about the communications side of politics. We will also give our interns more opportunity to write for our blog and will publish profile interviews on their experiences with us and what drew them to a possible career enacting social change.
Principle Consulting (trading name) is the same company as Principle Affairs Ltd, company number 05467588 (full details available on Companies House).
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