THE Caithness representation of Highland Youth Voice and Caithness Youth Forum recently met Stuart Davidson, the Highland youth convener.
Stuart represents the young people of the Highlands at council level, so any ideas we have can be put forward to the council, through him, to help make the Highlands a better place for us to live.
He is a respected member of the joint committee for children and young people (JCCYP), a group of councillors and council officials who work to ensure that the necessary services are being delivered to young people across the Highlands, with particular focus on their rights.
Last week Stuart took some time out of his busy schedule, coming all the way up from Nairn to visit us in Wick. He began by introducing himself to some of our newest members, as our numbers have increased since the last time we saw him at the Badaguish conference in November.
The purpose of his visit was to set us the task of highlighting the importance of politics to young people by means of a presentation to be shown Highland-wide, as politics affects our everyday life - even if we do not think so.
It is important that young people across the Highlands understand the importance of politics, especially in the run-up to the next Highland Council elections, scheduled for May 3.
Politics is viewed by most young people as boring. We at Caithness Youth Forum want to change this so that young people can understand that politics isn't all boring and that it is, in fact, very important and relevant in everyday life.
Our presentation will be aimed mainly at fourth, fifth and sixth-year pupils, with particular emphasis on those who will be able to vote during the next elections.
Not enough young people are voting and this is something we, with the help of Stuart, are trying to encourage them to do. We want young people to realise that politics affects our lives in every single way. If they do not vote in elections at either a local or national level then their life might change significantly, in ways that they might not always like.
Our presentation will highlight the ways in which politics affects aspects of young people's everyday lives, with regards to parties, sports, our time in school, and the legal ages for drinking and learning to drive.
It will also highlight the different roles and responsibilities held by councillors, MSPs (Members of the Scottish Parliament), MPs (Members of Parliament) and MEPs (Members of the European Parliament), showing how they affect our lives. The decisions which are made by all these people shape the lives of everyone.
Our meeting with Stuart was an extremely productive one, with many items being discussed in relation to young people's views on politics and how to approach the presentation, which will be made in the near future.
Stuart very kindly brought up posters on how politics affects young people's everyday lives which we took some inspiration from.
Tom Briscoe, the manager of Wick Youth Club, kindly provided refreshments and hot snacks for us all when we took a short break.
Overall our time with Stuart was successful, and Caithness Youth Forum came away from another meeting once again with new ideas and projects aimed at improving the perception of young people in the county.
Hopefully over the next few months we can encourage as many young people as possible to join the electoral register and get voting.
We all gave Stuart a warm thank you, showing him our appreciation for allocating time to us and helping us achieve our aim of becoming a successful youth forum, representing the young people of Caithness.
