Camden Council Launches Youth Celebration Week
Camden Council has launched Youth Celebration Week with a series of engaging events and activities designed to empower young people, youth workers, and professionals.
This initiative aims to raise awareness of the council's commitment to youth safety and provide young people with the tools to stay safe, get involved in their community and take part in positive activities.
Running from 2 to 6 December, Youth Celebration Week builds upon the success of the annual Camden Youth Safety Week, established in 2018 following the publication of the Camden Youth Safety Taskforce Report.
On Monday (2 December), the winners of Camden’s annual Youth Safety Multi-Media Competition were announced at an event held at Acland Burghley School’s Hall for All. The competition, which encourages young people to creatively express their understanding of youth safety, saw talented entrants use contemporary dance, poetry, documentary film-making, and animation to convey their powerful messages.
The joint winners of this year's competition are:
- Mosaic LGBT+ Young Persons' Trust, in collaboration with Publica, explored youth safety in Camden through four workshops in their weekly young persons’ club. They reflected on and discussed their members’ feelings of safety and belonging in the area around the trust's Camden-based centre. They explored how their members’ LGBT+ identity and gender expression affects their feelings of safety in the public realm. They also developed an Identity Manifesto, which will serve as the foundation for future exploration of their feelings of safety and belonging in the area. All of this is featured in their short, winning video. Watch the Mosaic Trust's winning film.
- Regent’s Park Young Guardians created an animated film, called Jamal's Story, which tells the story of Jamal and the hard lessons he learned after making some poor life choices. The story touches on criminal exploitation, county lines and the effect of vaping. Note: this film contains drug references and some adult themes. All people depicted are fictional and not based on any real people or businesses in or around Euston. Regent’s Park Young Guardians and Community Champions are part of a project supported by Fitzrovia Youth in Action and Camden Council’s Detached Youth Team, with funding from the Mayor of London’s Violence Reduction Unit.
The runners-up are:
- Camden Learning and Fitzrovia Youth in Action's two videos highlighting the issue of school attendance and how bad habits, such as video gaming, can affect regular school attendance.
- British Somali Community Centre – Impact of Sports on Women. BSCC's aim is to shine light on the remarkable work their young women and girls are doing in this once male-dominated field. They believe young women and girls need a space for them to feel safe and express themselves through sports. BSCC's girls' football sessions will be that space for young women and girls across Camden, from all diverse backgrounds to play and compete. Watch their video.
- Acland Burghley School's contemporary dance, performed live at the event by student Justin Howell inspired by the stresses of always being contactable by mobile phone and the impact of that on mental health and wellbeing. Watch the video.
- Parliament Hill School students created a series of posters, as well as a poem highlighting online safety. The poem was read at the Youth Safety Multi-Media Awards event by Camden Youth MP Zarin Bakhshzaad.
Our priority is to create a safe and supportive environment for young people in Camden to flourish. Youth Celebration Week allows us to engage directly with our communities, listen to the voices of young people, and celebrate the incredible work being done to empower and uplift them. Alongside our partners, I’m proud of what we’ve achieved so far, and we remain committed to continuing our efforts to reduce youth violence and provide opportunities for young people to thrive.
Other highlights of Youth Celebration Week include a Young People's Assembly on young women and girls' safety on Wednesday 4 December at the Crowndale Centre, the Camden Youth Awards on Friday 6 December, taking place at Acland Burghley School's Hall for All, and a Youth Mission feedback forum for young people Tuesday 3 December at Somers Town Youth Centre.
Activities and events, which are by invitation, are hosted by Camden Council’s Integrated Youth Support Service with local voluntary sector partners and schools.