Mary Abdo's blog

Kaycee de Belen, the Young Mayor of Newham, seems to be doing an absolutely brilliant job - here's a story about her work to promote safety for young people. She Newham has a noteworthy Young Mayor scheme and the whole area has really gotten behind Kaycee.

Today I had lunch with Sat Singh, who founded the Renaissance Foundation while still at school. Sat is not only a hugely inspiring person, he wants to take that inspiration to other young people too.

Sat told me how the Renaissance Foundation has created a DVD featuring interviews with celebrities and successful people from the UK and abroad, including the Williams sisters, Lewis Hamilton, Gordon Brown, Annie Lennox, Pharrell Williams and many others.

Exciting news - the UN has announced that 2010 will be an International Year of Youth!

There are a lot of events that will be held to celebrate the year, including the World Youth Congress in Turkey and the World Youth Conference in Mexico. The first Youth Olympic Games will also be held.

So, today is Thanksgiving, and I (like a few of the other folks involved in The Youth of Today) happen to be American.

For those of you who don't know, Thanksgiving is a secular harvest festival celebrated (at different times of the autumn) in Canada and the United States. The origins of the celebration are not well understood, but the popular myth is that early pilgrim settlers had help from indigenous people in North America to successfully plant crops; Thanksgiving is said to be a dinner they held together to celebrate the harvest season and this joint success.

Youth leadership is crucial to success of UK institutions

Many of society’s ills can be tackled by tapping into the energies and talents of the ‘Obama generation’ of young people in the UK, but without reforms much of that talent is going to waste.

Do you know a young person who has taken action to make a difference in their community? If so, why not nominate them for a CHANGEit award!

What do you think about the way that technology can empower young people?

Please click here to have your say!

The Youth of Today programme is conducting a survey of 13-25 year olds around the world to better understand how young people use information and communication technologies (ICTs). We are conducting the survey as part of our work on a publication on the subject (coming March 2010).

Young people, it seems, are running the country. Well done!

http://www.economist.com/world/britain/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14698752

Would you like to participate in a focus group in London on youth leadership organised by The Youth of Today? The Young Foundation, a partner on The Youth of Today, is conducting research into youth leadership around the world. The focus groups are a part of that research. This is a great way to have your voice heard and contribute to some cutting edge research.

We are holding two focus groups:
· November 16th at 4:30-5:30
· December 1st at 4:30-5:30

I read with interest an article in the Guardian this weekend about teenage boys and how misrepresented they are in the media. The figures are pretty striking:

"A survey of 1,000 teenage boys in the UK showed that 88% of them believed their career prospects were good, and 88% regarded themselves as ambitious; 87% were happy in their family lives, 87% were happy in their social lives, and 81% were happy in their school or work lives."