Highland Youth Voice - Caithness

14th December 2008

Elections took place for Highland Youth Voice- the Highland's Youth Parliament, last month. Approximately one-hundred young people were elected to represent their schools and local youth forums in the youth parliament.

From Friday 14th until Sunday 16th November, many of the Members of Highland Youth Voice (MHYVs) met at Badaguish, near Aviemore for one of their biannual conferences. The theme of the conference was transport and road safety. The young people were welcomed by the vice chair of the Transport, Environment and Community services committee and throughout the remainder of the conference, were met by the Highland Council Road Safety Officer and representatives from Northern Constabulary along with various other transport and road safety related groups.

Since November 2007, Highland Youth Voice have been undertaking work between conferences through their four campaign groups. There have been slight changes to the campaign groups since the latest conference and are now as follows- Transport and Road Safety, Health, Youth Services and Facilities and Crime and Anti-social Behaviour. The conferences will generally be based on each of the campaign groups.

Between conferences, much of the work and planning for conferences is done by the Executive Committee, more commonly known to Highland Youth Voice members as the Xec. The Xec meet on average, every six weeks to discuss matters which effect young people with various organisations and decision makers. The Xec also get the chance, once a year to shadow key officials from the organisations in the Highland Wellbeing Alliance and Heads and Directors of services in the Highland Council in the Apprentice Day. The purpose of the day is to enhance the links between young people and people who make important decisions which effect our lives and also to promote Highland Youth Voice. New Executive Committee members were elected during the conference at Badaguish and for Caithness, these members are Louis Mackinnon and Robin Falconer, both from Wick. Robin is also the Convener for the parliament's Transport and Road Safety Campaign Group.

The representatives for Thurso High School are Shadwai Abdel Aziz, Sarah Swanson and Susan Mair. And for Wick High School, they are Robin Falconer, Alan Hargrave and Louis Mackinnon.

For more information on Highland Youth Voice and the work it does, contact Audrey Anthoney on 01463 702043 or visit www.hyv.org.uk