SMP Youth Committee

Learn what our ten Youth Committee Members have been up to...

The Youth Committee was launched during the 2018 Year of Young People, with the Scotland Malawi Partnership committing to an exciting new project involving ten young people from across Scotland with links to Malawi. This project is supported by the YOYP 2018 National Lottery fund and we'd like to thank players of the National Lottery for supporting our activities.

The role of the Youth Committee is to help us create, plan and coordinate a series of events and competitions and help promote and develop the historic links between young people here in Scotland and in Malawi.

The project, including the Youth Committee, was started in September 2018 and the Youth Committee will continue to operate after the end of the project however, working with the SMP team to co-design our future work with young people. 

Find out more below about the activities, events, competitions and campaigns that have taken place as part of the project. 

Want to become part of the Youth Committee?

Do you want to help bring about positive social change for young people in Malawi and Scotland? Build lasting friendships with like-minded people? Are you aged between 14-24 and have an interest in the link between Scotland and Malawi? 

If so, we need you to join the SMP Youth Committee. You'll learn about organising events, creating social media content, and how to work with your allies in Malawi in really positive ways.

If the answer is yes to any or all of these things then you’d be perfect for the Youth Committee!

Benefits of being part of the Youth Committee:

There are loads of brilliant reasons for getting involved:

• Learn more about International Development and the link between Scotland and Malawi
• Work with the SMP team to design projects and events
• Develop skills like teamwork, problem solving, public speaking and organisation.
• Meet people with similar interests and make new friends
• Influence how major events and activities are run

How does the Youth Committee work?

• We have monthly meetings in Edinburgh or on Zoom. If anyone can’t make it to Edinburgh, we use Zoom so they can be included. We also pay for any public transport costs when people are travelling for the Youth Committee.
• We have certain events and activities that are planned in throughout the year, like the Youth Congress. Aside from things like this, the Youth Committee has a lot of freedom to come up with exciting ways of getting young people involved in the Partnership.
• We work with the members of the Youth Committee to identify where their strengths lie and which skills they’d like to develop. Then we look for specific tasks or roles they can take on to help them use those skills.
• Don’t worry if you’re not sure you can commit to the Youth Committee on a long term basis, we are really flexible with how much time people can commit and for how long they want to be involved. 

Here are some current Youth Committee members to tell you what they think….

Getting involved with the Youth Committee - Gift

To apply:

1. Fill in the online form here with your basic details. If you’re under 18, you’ll need to leave us contact details for a parent/carer/guardian so that we can ask for their consent for you to take part in the next part of the application.
2. Once we’ve received your application (and your parent/carer/guardian’s consent if it’s needed), we’ll send you the details of how to continue the application process. For this part, we want you to answer the following questions, in writing, or if you'd prefer to do something digital, you could make a video or create another way of telling us your answers. Simple as that!
1. Why do you want to be on the Youth Committee?
2. Why are you interested in the Scotland Malawi Partnership?
3. What will you bring to the Youth Committee?
4. Which is the most important Partnership Principle to you and why?
3. Make sure you've submitted your application by the 10th June 2020.

What have we achieved?

Events

Over the course of the project, the Youth Committee have co-designed and led on a number of events run by the SMP. These include the 2019 Youth Congress and the School Partnership Awards, as well as both our 2018 and 2019 AGMs. 

Co-design with the Youth Committee has been a core part of all the events run for young people over the course of this project. The Committee has been involved in all parts of the organisation from designing the programmes, choosing speakers and facilitators, to building evaluations and reflecting on what they could do better next time. 

Penicuik High School's Malawi Day

Competitions

 During 2019, the Youth Committee ran a competition for three lucky groups to win £500 and support from the Youth Committee and SMP team to put on an event celebrating their link to Malawi. 

Our lucky winners were the Ninewells Community Garden and Dundee University Medical Students Group, Beath High School and St Roch's Secondary School who all then hosted fantastic events, celebrating their links to Malawi and spreading the word in their local communities of their work. 

St Roch's Secondary School Malawi Day

Workshops

Over the second half of the project, the Youth Committee were involved with the design and delivery of workshops delivered in 8 schools across Scotland looking at the heritage and shared culture of the link between Scotland and Malawi. 

The first set of workshops were co-designed with the team from the David Livingstone Trust Birthplace Project. This workshop looked at the imagery used to tell the story of David Livingstone's journeys through Southern Africa in the 1800s and then linked this to the idea of how social media is used today to tell the story of our links to Malawi.

The second set of workshops looked at the cultural links between schools in Scotland and Malawi, asking schools to share poems in their first languages and to spend time learning these with a tutor.