Young People & Systems Change
Leaving something bigger than yourself!
At the Children’s Society we’ve set ourselves a mission to make systems change a more accessible topic. We are doing this in various ways — you can read about them in our blog series here.
We are passionate about empowering young people in all areas of our work. Whether it’s supporting them in our services, making their voices heard through our policy work or ensuring they shape our campaigns, youth voice is central to all we do. So, when considering how to make systems change more accessible, working with young people was top of our list.
To make this vision a reality we had the absolute privilege of working with Chickenshed, an inclusive theatre company based in North London. Donya and I worked with a group of incredible young people, teaching them about systems change so they could use their knowledge to teach primary aged school children about social action. We designed the workshop to ensure it was as accessible and engaging as possible. Meaning no jargon or overly complicated language and using clear examples to bring systems change to life.
The workshop covered:
1, What systems change is
2, The importance of interconnection
3, Different types of change
4, Real life examples of systems change
5, Ways to make change happen (learning from Ashoka)
We played games, designed posters, and had lots of fun. It’s hard to put into words how amazing these young people are. From the outset they completely embraced the concept of systems change, and showed incredible levels of passion, empathy, and self-awareness. They filled us with genuine hope for the future and we left feeling more determined than ever to empower young people to drive the change THEY want to see.
We are so grateful to everyone at Chickenshed for allowing us to film this workshop and for sharing their amazing insights. The videos speak for themselves! Please watch and share through your networks, I’m sure you’ll agree their voices need to be heard!
An introduction to systems change — YouTube
These young people really helped challenge and shape our thinking about the next stage of our systems change journey. Working in partnership with our youth voice team we are undertaking a scoping exercise to explore how we can empower more young people, helping them to understand and embrace challenging the systems that aren’t working for them and others. We are excited for the next phase of the journey and will continue to share our learning and next steps.
