South Lanarkshire school children have been deemed as good ambassadors for the council on account of their climate change and sustainability work.
At the Climate Change and Sustainability Committee meeting on Wednesday, November 9, members of South Lanarkshire Youth Forum of Climate Change and Sustainability attended to give councillors a taste of the work they have carried out in the past year to raise awareness about climate change.
The team who attended the meeting included chairperson of the forum Luca Assadi, who is a sixth year pupil at Strathaven Academy; Latifa Yakubu who is fifth year pupil at St John Ogilvie High School; Amber Cooper who is in third year at Trinity High School; and Luke Sutherland who is also in third year at Trinity.
Members of the youth forum were able to take part in the Climate Emergency Newsroom (CEN) which was a collaboration between the University of Glasgow’s Department of Politics and International Relations and South Lanarkshire’s Education Resources.
The CEN was launched in honour of Glasgow being the host city of COP26 last year, and around 80 sixth year pupils had the chance to attend and report on big stories and conduct interviews.
Over the course of the last year, the youth forum took part in a sustainable pathways course, which was led by co-founder Ciaran Armstrong who gave the group tips on how to become influential leaders as well as teaching them about the circular economy.
The forum created an event putting a focus on travelling, influencing, eating, reduce, reuse, recycle and shopping. Within the team, each group had a different set of activities for children at the event to rotate around.
At the event, South Lanarkshire children engaged with the activities and made their own pledges on what they will do less of, more of and what they would stop altogether to help reduce their own carbon footprint.
The work of the youth forum was highly welcomed by councillors who had the chance to attend the event.
Councillor Lynsey Hamilton (Clydesdale West) went to both days of the event and was fascinated by the work of the youths.
She said: “Myself and Councillor Gavin Keatt made it along on the Wednesday and Thursday. We were really pleased about how busy it was and how much you seemed to enjoy it.
“It was really important because we could see how much fun everybody was having with all the events going on. It was really busy so it’s good to let everybody know how it went, but it’s important that we take forward the learning from it and how important climate change is for children in schools.”
Councillor Ross Clark (Larkhall), who also attended the event, praised the work of the youth forum. He said: “It’s really good to see the good work going on and how we plan to build on that work going forward.
“It is good to have the youth forum along to the meeting. It’s really good to have the voices of young people to the meetings as young people are said to be the voice of the future but they’re also our present too.
“I was able to get along to the school’s conference event on the second day and it was really good to see the kids engaged and a lot of the activities were delivered by young people themselves and they seemed really engaging.”
Provost Margaret Cooper welcomed the work of the youth forum, and said: “I just wanted to thank the young people for coming along this morning and they should be very proud of themselves, they’re good ambassadors for their school and the council, I hope they continue the good work they started.”
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