UpRising Community Campaign Event

 

The UpRising leadership programme will be hosting a Community Campaign Event on Saturday 27 February for 18-25 year olds to find out more about UpRising and how to get involved. 

Come and meet current UpRising participants and learn about their community campaigns. The event is a chance to get creative, share your ideas and find solutions to problems you see in your area such as education, crime or health. Finally, if you wish, you’ll be able to sign up to a campaign that you like and act to transform your commnunity for the better.

Tea, coffee and snacks will be provided.

 We look forward to seeing you there!

Register here

Time: 11am-1pm, Saturday 27 February 2010.

Location: 18 Victoria Park Square, Bethnal Green, E2 9PF. A map is available here

Newham UpRiser Le Ho wins Big Challenge award

Left to right: Ola Akin, Le Ho, Shahin Ullah and Farah Mohammoud

  

Le Ho, a current participant on the UpRising leadership programme, has been announced as one of the winners of the Big Challenge award. The Big Challenge is a competition for young people aged between 16 and 25 to win part of a £60,000 prize fund for a project that brings communities together. Out of 150 entries only 15 young people went on to be winners after nearly 6000 members of the public voted online.  

Le Ho won the prize to support a campaign she has started to combat the negative perceptions of young people in Newham. Volunteers will travel around schools, community centres and religious groups to run workshops and share their message that young people are our future and not only will they prove their worth in years to come but they are also achieving astounding things today!  

Le found out about the BIG challenge after reading about it on the UpRising participants website. She then applied to the competition and, to her great astonishment, won!  

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Guardian learning visit

UpRisers were invited to the Guardian’s offices by Comment is Free editor Natalie Hanman to learn more about the Guardian and how they can get involved in writing articles for it!

The UpRisers received a tour of the newsroom and met with Guardian journalists Natalie Hanman, Afua Hirsch, Paul Lewis and Matthew Taylor to find out more about the newspaper.

During the visit on 27 January 2010, the UpRisers:

  • Got top tips on how to write a catchy, thought provoking comment article.
  • Took part in group discussions about issues they would like to write about. These ranged from the role of religion in society to climate change and international politics.
  • Gave advice to the Guardian on the interests of young people and how to appeal to them. 

Following the visit, UpRiser Eshaan Akbar, had an article published on Comment is Free about the BNP in Barking & Dagenham.

You can read Eshaan’s article here.

Pump up the volume!

UpRiser Ekky Haque is interviewed by Channel 4 News presenter Keme Nzerem about his community campaign

The January 2010 UpRising learning session was all about how to ‘pump up the volume’ through the media. During the session practitioners ran workshops on how to get a message across through the through the press, broadcast and online media.

Channel 4 presenter Keme Nzerem ran a workshop with UpRisers on how to take part in a TV interview. UpRisers practised mock interviews with Keme and then received personalised feedback. During the workshop UpRisers also analysed real life interviews held by politicians and spokespeople in order to learn from their performances.

Demos Press Officer Beatrice Burks held a workshop on how to grasp media attention when writing a press release. Beatrice drew from her experience of translating complex Demos reports into more accessible formats to show how to communicate messages to through the media. Beatrice also gave advice on how to engage local and national media in covering a story.

mySociety Director Tom Steinberg spoke to UpRisers about how to run campaigns online. The importance of emails as a tool for engaging with supporters was highlighted by Tom. Key message: Keep it SHORT, CLEAR, FRIENDLY!

Welcome for Speaker’s Conference backing of youth and community citizenship engagement programmes

The UpRising leadership programme has welcomed the backing by the Speaker’s Conference of youth and community citizenship engagement programmes.

The Speaker’s Conference is a committee of MPs that has been investigating how Parliament can be made more representative. In their final report today (11 January 2010) the Conference highlighted the importance of youth and citizenship programmes that directly focus on developing active citizens.

The Speaker’s Conference pointed out though that many of these organisations were small-scale and called on the Government to ensure ‘greater and more consistent access to youth and community citizenship engagement programmes’.  

Omar Salem, who leads the UpRising leadership programme at the Young Foundation, said:

“We welcome the recognition from the Speaker’s Conference of the importance of youth and community engagement programmes to strengthening Parliament and making it more representative. We hope the government, along with business and the third sector, will now take up the challenge of increasing access to these programmes.”

A number of members of the Speaker’s Conference took part in an event in March 2009 to get advice from participants of the UpRising leadership programme.  The UpRisers, who are young adults aged 19-25 years old, discussed with MPs Anne Begg, Ann Cryer, Fiona Mactaggart and Jo Swinson what could be done to make Parliament more representative and engage more young people in politics.

Omar Salem and Louise Pulford who work on the UpRising leadership programme, also gave evidence in Parliament in March 2009 to the Speaker’s Conference. They called for more efforts to develop young people’s leadership potential and to link them to opportunities to get involved in politics.

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Cabinet Minister reports back to UpRisers on Copenhagen Conference

Ed Miliband addresses the Post-Copenhagen meeting held at the QE2 Conference Centre, London 21 December 2009.

Ed Miliband, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, reported back on the Copenhagen Climate Change conference at an event attended by UpRisers.   

On Monday 21 December 2009 a group of UpRisers attended the event at the QE2 Conference Centre, Westminster. Along with other members of the audience, they also had the opportunity to hear from Prime Minister Gordon Brown via a live feed connection, and took part in a Q&A with the PM.    Read More »

Registration now open for UpRising 2010-11

Registration to take part in the 2010-11 UpRising programme is now open. Registering is the first stage of getting a place on UpRising.

It is quick and easy to register by clicking here.

This is great opportunity for 19-25 year olds from East London who want to learn important public leadership skills, make new friends, take part in exciting events and serve the community.

Leadership opportunities learning session

Councillor Stephanie Eaton speaks to UpRisers about being a councillor

Councillor Stephanie Eaton speak to UpRisers about being a councillor

UpRisers took part in a learning session on 3 December 2009 to examine a range of different opportunities for public leadership and service.

During a series of roundtable discussions, UpRisers questioned a number of public leaders about their roles. Cllr Stephanie Eaton, Leader of the Liberal Democrat group of Tower Hamlets councillors spoke about her work representing constituents in the Town Hall; and UpRising graduate Seye Odukogbe described his enjoyment of being a governor at Sarah Bonnell School in Stratford, Newham.

The participants also heard from UpRising graduates Hollie Ridley and Ahmed Shazad. Hollie Ridley spoke about her volunteering at Abbey Children’s Centre and Ahmed Shazad explained his roles as a trustee of Student Action for Refugees and as a member of the Big Lottery Fund’s awarding panel for myplace.

The session, held at Oxford House, Bethnal Green, was facilitated entirely by a group of UpRisers. Tahera Begum, Komal Chokski, Aude Loreau, Farah Mohammoud, Susannah Ngoke and Charles Onyeacholem took responsibility for running the learning session from beginning to end – and did a fantastic job!

Click here to view photos of the learning session.

Read More »

UpRising Meetup with speed networking

Oyin Akiniyi introduces speed networking at the UpRising Meetup

UpRising held a Meetup with a speed networking session led by UpRiser Oyin Akiniyi on 24 November 2009. UpRisers Le Ho, Farah Mohammoud and Natasha Shaikh also spoke at the event about their activities on the programme. 

The social gathering, held at St Margaret’s House, Bethnal Green, was an opportunity for current UpRisers, UpRising graduates, mentors, the UpRising team, and supporters of the programme to catch up. 

Click here to see photos of the event.

Who runs this place?

Rushanara Ali, Peter Kellner and Geoff Mulgan discussing power with the UpRisers

Power was the subject of the UpRising learning session held on 12 November 2009. UpRisers explored what the idea of ‘power’ means and the current power dynamics in the UK. They also discussed different types of power and the importance of values to responsible use of power.

Speakers at the learning session included Peter Kellner, former Political Analyst for Newsnight and now President of polling company YouGov, and Geoff Mulgan, Director of the Young Foundation. The discussion was chaired by Young Foundation Associate Director Rushanara Ali.

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