– WB. The eleventh meeting of the Espelkamp Children’s and Youth Council and at the same time the first of the New Year celebrated a small premiere a few days ago. Eight members met, two of them at the Isy 7 socio-cultural center and six online via the Big Blue Button web conference system. Chairperson Narjis Lehna chaired the meeting. There was slight feedback and technical malfunctions during the personal greeting, but these did not recur in the course of the meeting.
In the future, the Children’s and Youth Advisory Council would like the five areas of schools, clubs, youth facilities and direct applicants to be filled with eight places each. If one of the areas does not use up its quota, the places should be made available.
The voting age is to be raised and will be 14 to 20 years from now. “Even if a person is already considered to be a teenager at the age of 14, we want to continue to be called a child and youth council and represent the wishes and concerns of the children”, promised Narjis Lehna.
Your application, which is coordinated with the city youth worker Frank Engelhardt, is to be dealt with in the next main committee. If it receives the recommendation there, it must then be decided by the council. Only then can the new statutes be applied by the child and youth council.
Board election
With a view to the election of the new board, which was actually planned between February and March, but will probably now take place between Easter and summer, Lehna has already appealed to the members to think about how the children and Youth Council can attract people for the next term. The intention is to increase advertising. “We have to get more face on the social networks,” she said. “We have little or no representation there.” The meeting suggested making flyers and making videos. This should now take place promptly. The Advisory Board would like to rely on professional help for this. The digital way is definitely “cool” for young people and, given the Corona restrictions, maybe even the only way.
Contacts with schools
Narjis Lehna said that direct contact, for example with conversations in schools, is of course more personal, but will probably not be feasible for a long time due to the ban on contact. Lehna would like to seek and enable contact through the schools also through the student councils.
The Children and Youth Council would like to work with schools online on another point. Because many students need tuition, the Children and Youth Council would like to set up a tuition exchange to bring students and tutors together. The advisory board had thought about an online project. Because tutoring schools have closed at the moment, it is difficult from this side to offer the usual lessons. The advisory board wants to make its idea public with the city of Espelkamp.
Meanwhile, Narjis Lehna pointed out that the campaign week “Colorful instead of black and white” (BSSW) will also be canceled this year. The organizers have already agreed on some other ideas with their fellow campaigners. Among other things, Espelkamp groups and individuals want to present themselves with a dance video and take part in the worldwide dance event “Jerusalema Dance Challenge”. For this, too, the child and youth council wants to use professional help. Lehna put a vote on whether the Espelkamp advisory board wanted to participate. The vote was unanimously “for”.
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