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

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!  

Le Ho, UpRiser and winner of the Big Challenge says:   

“Even though I didn’t expect to win, I wanted to put my idea out there for public comment and feedback. Only when I did this did I realise that many people genuinely cared about the portrayal of young people. People in my community young, old and in between are concerned that young people aren’t getting a fair chance in life and are branded before they’ve tried. Our first step will be to gather all our young volunteers together and identify the skills we share as a team, and then gather support from various networks of people who are also passionate about raising the awareness of young people’s successes.  We’ll be running workshops in the community to challenge these negative perceptions.”   

Le is also planning on producing a magazine to be distributed in Newham. The magazine will feature stories of successful young people in the area including: up and coming young artists, young academics and young athletes.  

Le is working with fellow UpRisers: Shahin Ullah, Farah Mohammoud and Ola Akin. Le, acting as project manager, will work with her team to recruit a group of young volunteers. The team will work together to raise the awareness of the successes and achievements of young people today.  

Le recently attended a training residential courtesy of the BIG Challenge where she learnt about project management and budgeting. She is now ready to recruit volunteers and get her campaign rolling!  

How to get involved in Le Ho’s campaign  

If you are interested in becoming a volunteer either as a young person running a workshop or if you would like young volunteers to run a workshop at your organisation then please contact Le N Ho, at lenguyenho@hotmail.com.   

Further information  

1. UpRising is a new leadership programme being developed by the Young Foundation to support and train a new generation of public leaders. UpRising identifies, recruits, develops and supports 19 to 25 year olds to enable them to play a greater role in politics and public decision-making. The aim is to create a pool of talented young leaders from a range of backgrounds who can transform their communities for the better and take up positions of power in public institutions. UpRising was launched in 2008 and is being piloted in the East London boroughs of Barking and Dagenham, Newham and Tower Hamlets. It will then spread across London and into other major cities across the UK. The programme has cross-party support with Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg serving as its patrons.
2. The Young Foundation is a centre for social innovation based in London, with a 50 year track record of success in creating new organisations – public, private and non-profit – as well as influencing ideas and policies. It has its roots in the work of Michael Young, the man who invented the Open University, the Consumers’ Association, and drafted Labour’s 1945 manifesto. Its current director is Geoff Mulgan.
3. Big Challenge is run by UnLtd in partnership with Changemakers with funding from Vodafone and v.The Big Challenge gives YOU the opportunity to tackle the BIG problems that face our communities. The Big challenge offers 16 to 25 the chance to apply for part of a £60,000 prize fund to tackle challenges in people’s communities. The theme is chosen by the Big Challenge Youth Leadership Team. Winners receive money to cover the costs of your campaign and support and mentoring to help transform your ideas to reality. The next round of Big Challenge funding launches at the end of April and all details on how to apply will be at www.bigchallenge.org.uk closer to the time.
4. V, the national young volunteers service, is an independent charity dedicated to helping young people volunteer in ways that matter to them. Its mission is to make volunteering opportunities so diverse, compelling and easy to get involved with that giving up your time to help others becomes a natural lifestyle choice for 16-25 year olds in England.

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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.

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!

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.

Further information

Recommendation 2 (Paragraph 38) of the final report of the Speaker’s Conference (on Parliamentary Representation) reads:

“The Government should ensure greater and more consistent access to youth and community citizenship engagement programmes. The Government should also consider what more it can do to support organisations which are, directly or indirectly, promoting active citizenship and political literacy.”

Click here to read a copy of the final report of the Speaker’s Conference.

Click here to find out more about the event held with the Speaker’s Conference and UpRising participants.

Click here to read evidence from Omar Salem and Louise Pulford to the Speaker’s Conference.

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.

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.

Biographies of speakers

Stephanie Eaton

Stephanie Eaton leads the Liberal Democrat group of councillors on Tower Hamlets Council. Stephanie has argued passionately for increased respite care for the families of disabled children, improvements in youth justice, and greater provision of Mother tongue and English language and adult education classes. Outside of her political role, Stephanie is an academic criminologist.

Stephanie spoke about what being a councillor involves, the route to becoming a councillor and ways of getting involved in political parties.

Click here for more information about Stephanie Eaton.

Seye Odukogbe

Seye Odukogbe is a school governor at Sarah Bonnell School in Stratford, Newham. He spoke about his experience of being a school governor, and how to become a school governor.

Seye is an UpRising graduate and during his time on the programme worked with fellow graduate Kalve Zaiga to organise a one day event, “Stay Focus” at the University of East London in June 2009. The event brought AS level students together from three sixth form colleges in East London to increase awareness of career opportunities in the financial services sector. The event involved presentations from KPMG, Credit Suisse, Thomson Reuters and Common Purpose; a networking lunch; and a personal development plan workshop.

Hollie Ridley

Hollie Ridley is an UpRising graduate and student studying humanities at Brighton University. She is passionate about improving opportunities for young people in Barking and Dagenham.

Hollie has volunteered at Abbey Children’s Centre in Barking & Dagenham. She spoke about her experience of volunteering and opportunities to get involved volunteering with young people in Barking & Dagenham.

Hollie was recently interviewed about social mobility on flagship BBC Radio 4 programme Broadcasting House, which has a listenership of 2 million people.

Click here to listen to Hollie on Radio 4.

Ahmed Shazad

Ahmed Shazad was a member of the Big Lottery Fund’s awarding panel for myplace – a million capital fund for youth centres. He recently took part in vetting and awarding funds totalling £180 million to 41 projects across the country.  

Ahmed is also a trustee of Student Action for Refugees, a national network of student groups working to improve the lives of refugees in the UK.

Ahmed spoke at the learning session about trusteeship and membership of funding committees.

Ahmed is a graduate of UpRising and took part in the UpRising Raleigh 2009 India Expedition, helping plant mango trees at a new sustainable agriculture project in Huskuradi village, Mysore.

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.

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.

Peter Kellner spoke about the difference between holding power and exerting influence. He said that while it is thought by many that people who have held power – such as Churchill, Thatcher or Blair – have had the biggest impact on the world, it is often those who influenced power that have the more transformative impact in the long run. Examples of the later approach given by Peter Kellner were John Maynard Keynes’s influence on economic theory and that of William Beveridge on the development of the welfare states.

Peter Kellner also warned the UpRisers to question, although not cynically, those with power, and to bear in mind that power can be corrupting. He further pointed out that the beauty of a democracy is that, unlike autocracies, power grows out of the pen or the ballot box.

Geoff Mulgan spoke about other forms of power, such as moral power or authority – a potential power people have and often underestimate. Using the example of Sharron Storer, who confronted Tony Blair during the 2001 general election, he demonstrated how people often have more power than generally thought. He said that the insight of leaders such as Gandhi and Martin Luther King was how to harness the moral power of the powerless through encouraging the powerful to attack them so that the powerful undermined themselves.

Conversely, those in formal positions of power, such as government can often have far less power than might be expected because they are hemmed in by constraints placed upon them from the media to the public and international organisations. Geoff Mulgan warned about pursuing power for the sake of power – rather, power should be pursued to achieve an objective.

A lively discussion took place following the speakers’ contributions covering issues ranging from the extent to which the EU had gained power and how new media changes the nature of influence of the mainstream media.

Click here to see photos of the learning session.