The Member of Parliament for Eastleigh, Mims Davies, has joined with CEOs, community leaders, schools and HRH The Prince of Wales as part of the Step Up to Serve Advisory Council. The Advisory Council is convened once a year by His Royal Highness to reflect on the organisation’s progress from the previous year and to consider the coming year.
Step up to Serve aims to embed meaningful social action into the lives of young people across the UK. Currently four out of ten young people aged between 10 and 20 get involved in activities that make a positive difference in their communities. However, research indicates that almost double this number would take part in things like campaigning, fundraising and volunteering if they had the chance. This is what Step up to Serve and their #iwill campaign aims to change.
Commenting, Eastleigh MP and Minister for Youth, Mims Davies said:
“It was great to be able to meet with so many influential figures from across industry, education and public life to highlight our priorities moving forward. In particular, I was really pleased to echo the words of the events co-host, Saeed Atcha MBE, who spoke passionately about challenging the negative stereotypes of young people. As Eastleigh’s MP I know how important community activism is and what an important role community activism can play for young people, in making them feel like they’re part of something bigger than themselves.
“Locally we have many different youth groups from the Air Training Corps to the Scouts as well as sports groups and youth activities down on the River Hamble, and as the local MP I’ve had the pleasure of meeting many of them.
“The #iwill campaign aims to increase the quality and quantity of youth social action and paired with the National Citizen Service and other forms of community activism it works to help increase the participation of young people in our society. Eastleigh’s young people deserve a greater stake in our society and through this campaign they can get just that.”