Campaign Tictacs.

Hello again comrades,

Last time on iRed, I waxed lyrical about my ideas for the Disillusionment With The Political Process campaign (hereafter known as DWPP because I'm lazy) and now the time has come to get some form of strategy down from which things may be achieved. Whilst brainstorming these earlier I found that despite having big plans for this campaign, getting it off the ground in the first place could be rather more difficult.

To that end, here's a list of ideas I've considered and little explanations which will hopefully be handy for you all. If you could find the time to offer suggestions, comments and critique I would be most appreciative and I'm sure it will result in the campaign being far better and more successful.

Schools:

As erudite readers will be aware, most young people are in schools of some form. Therefore, they are a brilliant way of getting in to contact with large groups of young people. Teachers also tend to be fairly receptive to ideas of community involvement etc. There is an award scheme for schools that do just this which I shall find out about so that I can offer them a tangible reward that acknowledges the positive achievements of the pupils and also makes the school look good. In the age of target driven education this could be extremely useful in selling DWPP to teachers.

Another possible angle to take with the schools is to get involved with student councils. I am slightly reluctant to do this after some, erm...bewildering...encounters with a few teams from my school. Student councils attract very pro active people who are happy to sacrifice their time to make a difference, but they also gather some who just want somewhere to go during lunch. Nevertheless, it is a valid route and if this is to make a lasting impression then they will be necessary as obviously I can't actually be in the schools and teachers are liable to get distracted by things more important than some obscure request from an MYP.

This is (again) longer than I expected or planned and I still want to comment on something I read in the Guardian the other day, so it seems likely that my plans are going to be published in a series. Isn't that exciting. Now the fun can be stretched out over a few installments...

Moving on to the Guardian. I don't know if anyone else perused their copy of Society Guardian on the fifteenth of April, but it was entirely edited, designed and written by young people. There was a large section written by a group who had taken action in a very deprived housing estate to reduce youth offending through involvement in the community; allotments, volunteering, incentives had all been utilised and the change was remarkable. The police went from receiving roughly six complaints of bad behaviour a day, to six a month. This has sort of vindicated this campaign in my eyes and just proven the fantastic things that could get done if things go to plan.

In the words of that annoying little git from 'The Speaker': "We COLLECTIVELY need to make a difference today." *shudder*

Solidarity

RedFred