Charlotte represents the AoC at the FEA Youth Summit

On the 27^th of October I was lucky enough to attend the FEA Youth Summit at UBS in London on behalf of AoC, representing the Youth Social Action Apprentice Programme. This event brought together 166 young change-makers united on a mission to tackle educational inequalities.

The day began with a talk from keynote speaker Sarah Smith, MP for Hyndburn and Haslingden, who emphasised the importance of equal education, backing up her speech with work she is currently doing in Parliament, showing that change is possible.

The first workshop I attended was the Youth Voice Panel led by members of the Fair Education Alliance Youth Steering Group and Misson 44 Youth Advisory Board. It was an eye-opening talk - hearing from a variety of young people, all from different backgrounds, that are currently making positive change even in the face of adversity. They spoke about personal challenges and barriers they have faced including race, being a young carer, and being neuro-divergent. Their stories displayed determination, resilience, and power.

After networking over lunch, we heard from the dynamic panel including MP Munira Wilson, Jo Petch from Ofsted, Sanjan Sabherwal from the Department of Education, and Riley Sweeney Youth Ambassador for the Children’s Commissioner, who tackled hard-hitting questions from the audience who were pressing them about the lack of funding and support in education. They also outlined the way policymakers and young people can work together to make a difference and promoted current youth voice activities they are running to ensure decisions are being made with a comprehensive range of opinions.

The next session I attended focused on changing the law and policymaking, where I engaged in a fascinating conversation with Policy Advisor Hannah Baldwin and other eager young people, discussing ways of ensuring policies are youth-led and youth-advised. We discussed various strategies that could be enforced, such as governments encouraging more existing boards to allocate a certain number of roles to young people, so their voices are always being heard. Additionally, we had an in-depth conversation about the difference between youth-led and tokenism and how policymakers can avoid their efforts to hear young people being tokenistic.

After being inspired about how to change the law, I attended a session on starting your own initiative. This was an incredible opportunity to speak to other young change-makers about what we can do to make a positive difference and how we can do it. We discussed how you grab people’s attention using billboards and promotion, how you build a community to support your campaign by using social media, and what the most effective type of campaigning is and when is most appropriate to use it.

Finally, I joined Gina Cicerone, CEO of FEA, who led a session on the importance of networking, allowing me to meet some other incredible young people with big ideas, giving me hope for the future of equality in education.

The day ended with a talk from Sarah Payne, UK Head of Philanthropy and Social Impact at UBS, who showed her support and admiration for our focus on making positive change, and she emphasised our message once again. Finally, we were treated to an excellent performance by musician Rippa who ended the Youth Summit on an energetic note.

The FEA Youth Summit was inspiring and allowed a safe space for changemakers to come together and highlight the power of youth voice and community. From this, I will take away that young people’s voices are powerful and, although young people face various stereotypes of being lazy, unorganised, and unmotivated about the future, the FEA Youth Summit and the Youth Social Action Apprenticeship has shown me the complete opposite. I have witnessed motivated, passionate young people who want to make a difference in a world full of injustice and inequality and I hope the young people and the policymakers listened and learnt from each other at the FEA Youth Summit 2024.