When we were approached by Surbjit Dhillon from an organisation called CEMVO Scotland about organising a visit to The Scottish Parliament as part of a project she was running, called ‘Young Confident and Connected' (YCC), we jumped at the opportunity.
Surbjit is working with young people aged 16-25 from ethnic minority communities on her programme. The YCC has been funded by The Big Fund, Young Start Programme which aims to create opportunities for children and young people to help them realise their potential. Here’s some information about the programme:
‘It is an innovative project seeking to inspire, nurture and create potential future ethnic minority leaders. It will encourage young people to be more confident, learn new skills and to be better connected with community issues. They will be equipped with the awareness and knowledge of race equality issues that affect them and their communities. They will be able to use these skills to influence policy development in Scotland in a constructive and effective way.’
The group visited us on a Thursday to watch First Minister's Question Time, meet with their MSPs and colleagues, have a tour of the building as well as taking part in a short session about what happens at the Scottish Parliament. We were delighted to work with the young people involved and were really pleased to hear that one member of the group said afterwards,
“I’ve learned more about politics in one day than in the whole of my life!”
We asked one member of the group currently taking part, Suneet Lalli (middle right above), some questions about the project and here's what we found out: