More than ever before young people are ready to take an active part in improving their communities. By doing so they can help those around them at the same time as developing skills for life.Enabling more young people to be involved is integral to the #iwill campaign.
#iwill is a UK-wide campaign, run by Step Up To Serve, aiming to make involvement in social action (e.g. fundraising, volunteering and campaigning) a normal part of life for 10-20 year-olds by the year 2020.
Launched in 2013 by HRH Prince of Wales #iwill is both cross party and cross sector.
Through collaboration and partnership, the #iwill campaign is spreading the word about the benefits of youth social action, working to embed it in the journey of young people and creating fresh opportunities for participation.
A key focus of the #iwill campaign this year is generating more opportunities in the Health and Social Care sector. To kick start this a workshop was convened recently group led by CSV, BITC, NHS England and the Dept. of Health to look at how they can develop youth social action provision.
The campaign focuses on bringing together organisations from across the sectors, to take action on key activities that will help towards their goal.
#iwill can only be a success if partners join the campaign and make tangible pledges. Support can come through providing social action opportunities, such as youth volunteering, campaigning or charitable work; by sharing the benefits of social action and telling young people about social action opportunities in their area; or by integrating youth social action into your ethos, policies and practices so that it becomes part of young people’s lives wherever they are.
Do you work for an organisation aiming to create positive change that could benefit from the involvement of a committed young person?
Watch the impact of youth social action on the NHS from one of the #iwill ambassadors:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNG09TS-eTQ
If so, could you open up opportunities for young people to be involved? If you are already working with young people to do social action, why not shout about it and share your story to inspire others to follow your lead?
If you’d like to make supporting youth social action your NHS Change Day action this year, you can find out how to do this on the iwill website. http://www.iwill.org.uk/get-involved/
If you are supporting youth social action, share your story and inspire others at http://fabnhsstuff.net/tell-us-your-action/.