Week 6: Our Trip to Parliament

By Serena Lola

​On the 29th of August 2017: The Heston West Big Local Youth Action Team went to the UK Parliament to present their campaign idea to make politics more accessible to the younger demographic as well as implementing life skill courses/classes for youth in order to give them a kick-start in life so that they are ready for everyday problems they will face in the future. We believe this is very important and it was said by Mariam Quraishi that life skills/ politics are important “because we gain transferable skills we can use as well as opening up opportunities for ourselves.

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​The day started off with us meeting Seema Malhotra, the MP of Feltham and Heston and then being led into Parliament and to the café where we enjoyed some delicious food. After Seema then gave us a tour of Parliament as well telling us about some of the history of the place such as Spencer Perceval was assassinated in the House Of Commons and ancestors of him as well as from the murder are members of parliament to this day which I found pretty interesting as well as astonishing. Furthermore the Parliament building itself was really beautiful just like the outside of the building and I especially thought that the centre of the houses was amazing due to its stunning detail and astounding design.  

​Following that we were taken into a conference room where the select committee usually have their proceedings and to be in there was a huge privilege and an even bigger one was to sit in their seats while doing our presentation. We were joined also by Rupa Huq (MP of Ealing Central and Acton) we then proceeded to present our campaign which is all about getting the younger generation more involved in politics so they can gain a wider understanding along with leaning valuable life skills for the future which can help them not only once they’ve left school but also whilst in it. Moreover we not only want to engage the younger generation but the older generation as well because we feel that we can help build a stronger community through bridging the generation gap but also by doing this the older generation also stand to gain as they can have the correct information to help them decide when voting as most of the time they are influenced by what the media tells us as opposed to thinking for themselves.

​​Once we had concluded our presentation Seema and Rupa asked us questions to get a deeper understanding of what we were trying to do and after we were happy to hear that they would be happy to help us with the campaign and helping us to run things, so overall this trip was a success! Feeling pretty proud of inspirational day, and ourselves we took some photos in the conference room and left having had a fun day, which is the beginning of us doing something great for our community. 

Anjali Parmar (age 13) said: “ Today was a really fun day” and she thinks “that more people should get involved with organisations like the Heston West Big Local as it helps to build confidence as well as getting to meet new people and having fun whilst making a change to our community in order to make It a happier and healthier place to live” 

​This highlights our message we want to push across as we want to inspire others to get involved and help make a difference.

​I can also see that the other volunteers can see that we will make a difference as Rajan Sandhu said: “Today was really useful and motivating as it not only expanded his communication skills but it was also and bonding event for the team”

​He then went on to add “that it is important for children to know about politics so they know that they have a voice that they can use to make a difference in the world”
 
Overall, today was a fantastic and once in a lifetime experience, which we as young volunteers are extremely proud of and hope we may be able, to do something like this again as we love to help people and make our community a better place.  Now that we have done this we feel we can really make a change and we cannot wait to start work on our campaign and inspire more people to get involved.

​The presentation was delivered by Anjali Parmar, Sharanjit Kaur, Serena Lola, Rajan Sandhu, Amadeus Lang, Saim, Mariam Quraishi  and Mustapha. 

We were also supported by our Youth Action Members: Iman Jaura , Subhan Jaura , Anjali Kumar, Caitlin Poon, Huzayma Khamis, Abbie McFerran, Rhys Jones, Cammeron Jones, Callum Willis, Amrita Tar, Megha Dahdrai, Ayushi, Harveer and Harpreet Kaur. 

CLICK HERE TO READ ABOUT OUR YOUTH ACTION JOURNEY