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8/13/2019 David Ward MP's Get on the Bus Summer Campaign
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/david-ward-mps-get-on-the-bus-summer-campaign 1/12
During the summer of 2013 , David Ward, the Member of Parliamentfor Bradford East and his team went on a tour of his constituency.The aim of the tour was to talk to young people aged between 16and 24 living in some of the most deprived parts of the countryabout what matters to them, to encourage them to register to voteand to find issues they could campaign to change together. Thisreport tells the story of our project.
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Get on the Bus
A report from theoffice ofDavid Ward MP
Get on the Bus
8/13/2019 David Ward MP's Get on the Bus Summer Campaign
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Project BackgroundThere is much evidence to support the view that that young peopleperceive politics as dull, boring and irrelevant, difficult to access andpolitician as remote, and that young people have low levels of interest in and knowledge of politics. (White, Bruce, Ritchie 2000).Bradford East is no exception.
In our constituency there are around 24,0000 young people, over aquarter of the population is aged between 16 and 29. There are alsoan estimated 12,000 people who are not registered to vote.
Research by IPSOS Mori, 2010 found;
“There are clear ‘at risk’ groups in voting, registering and engagement – young people, ethnic minorities, lower social grades etc. Promotion of engagement and knowledge among these groups should be focused on.”
It is in places like Bradford East that unless work is done toencourage participation then decision-making risks beingunrepresentative. Against that background that the “Get on the Bus”project was born. The project linked together an MP’s Office Teamwith the Council’s Youth Services and young volunteers toencourage participation in areas with multiple deprivations, somewith a high number of young people of a South East Asian heritage;
others an almost exclusively white British heritage.
Working with the Member of Parliament for Bradford East the projectworked with young volunteers recruited from across our communityto engage with other young people to identify what are their topissues. The volunteers were supported by the MP’s constituencyteam, fully trained and apprentice Youth Workers. Young peoplewere encouraged to “Get on the Bus” to discuss their issues,
develop a local manifesto and participate in voter registration andbudgeting activities using materials from the Bite the BallotCampaign.
8/13/2019 David Ward MP's Get on the Bus Summer Campaign
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Preparation workThe team designedthe logo to be usedon our T-shirts andbadges.
We designedquestionnaires touse in the streetwith young people.
Youth workers, volunteersand David’s constituencystaff team were involved indesigning the project and
were trained together to usethe Bite the Ballot materials.Participants were each givena facilitators guide andencouraged to use thematerials in different settings.
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We used as a base for ourproject a single-deck bus whichwas hired from a local communityproject, Hale (Health Action Local
Engagement).
This gave us somewhere to meet,carry out work with young peopleand for David’s casework team aplace to provide a mobile surgery.
Barbar was our driver, our
biggest supporter, our Mr Fix-itand our very welcome King of theTeapot!
8/13/2019 David Ward MP's Get on the Bus Summer Campaign
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radford’s Youth
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o u n g P e r s o n ’ s V o t e r R e g i s t r a t i o n F o r m
Working with the ElectionsUnit at Bradford Council welaunched Bradford’s Youth
Voter Registration Form.
Qamer Maqsood and MaryamSajid signed up the firstyoung person in Bradford touse the new form.
Voter Registration
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Bradford Community Broadcasting agreed to partner
the project by broadcasting one pre-recorded and twolive shows each week. This enabled us to record andshare what young people were telling us.
With the help of Daniel Carroll, BCB’s Youth RadioWorker and his volunteers we broadcast a mix ofmusic, views from young people, discussions and livequestions. Young people were invited to participate in
live broadcast discussions and ask questions throughsocial media.
Young volunteers used I-pads, their phones anddicta-phones to collect interviews in the streets.These were emailed to Daniel for broadcast.
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8/13/2019 David Ward MP's Get on the Bus Summer Campaign
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materials. Our original intentionwas to use the Bite the Ballotmaterials in the streets but thisproved difficult to organise(weather, nerves of theparticipants, space required) so wemoved indoors to youth clubs
where it worked much much better.
David’s staff team ran somesessions as did some of the youth workers. Youth workers havebeen trained, have the materials and plan to run more sessions inthe future. David’s team are using the materials with post-16students in local schools.
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Bite the Ballot is a campaigncreated by young people to
inspire others to speak up and bea part of the decisions thatdirectly affect them. MichaelSani, Chief Executive of Bitethe Ballot came to Bradford toteach volunteers, youth workersand David Ward’s staff team howto use the Bite the Ballot
Bite the Ballot
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Places we visited
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What the people said..
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“Good to work together in
partnership. Brought a real
understanding of democracy
to young people. Lookingforward to doing more work
together in the future”.
Paul Johnson, Area
Manager, Bradford East
Youth Services
“Really great! Brought real life
perspectives on the importance
of voting. Showed young people
how they do not have any power
if they don’t register to vote.
Really enjoyed the session”.
Paula Helliwell, Social Action
Lead, National Citizenship
Programme
“This is exactly what community broadcasting is all about. Going
out into communities and talking
to them about the issues they
care about. We want to roll it out
across other parts of Bradford”.
Dani Carroll, BCB’s Youth
Radio Worker
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“We dealt with David’s casework on the
bus. People were really surprised that we
had the systems all set up on a bus. A
great - if unusual was to run surgeries.
Exhausting but fun”.
Rachel Sunderland, Senior Caseworker
“Everyone says it is important for politicians to engage more with young
people but the question is, how? I have one of the busiest constituencyoffices in the country but young people are not queuing up outside the
door! The answer to the question is to go to where young people are i.e. on
the streets, in the parks, in the youth centres. And when you do engage
with them what do you find? You find that they are interested in issues,
they do have opinions and they do want to be heard. To the hundreds of
young people that we met I would like to say a big "thank you" for your
time and courtesy. My team and I had a great summer - and I look forward
to repeating it next year!”
David Ward MP
“It was really interesting. I’ve
never done anything like this
before. I learnt a lot about politics and am going to keep in
touch. I’m looking at the news
to see what’s happening in the
community. It’s given me
knowledge. I wasn’t really
interested before. I’ve learnt lots
of different skills about meeting
and interacting with people”.
Kaneez Fatima, Volunteer
“As a young person from Bradford
studying politics, it was very
interesting to see first hand David’s
efforts to try and engage more young
people with politics in the city”.
Michael Powell, Volunteer
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This summer has been an exhilarating,exhausting, exciting experience which hasleft me at times deeply moved by thechallenges faced by young people and
optimistic for their ability to take on thosechallenges in equal measure.
It would not have been possible without thefinancial support of the many people who arelisted individually or collectively below.
Rajeev Deweedi
Seafresh Foods
CFA Projects
Jaz Athwal
Alan Griffen
John Cole
John Briggs
Alun Griffiths
John Pashley
Jennifer Pearson
Lord William Wallace
Edward Mac Millan Scott MEP
Rebecca Taylor MEP
Local businesses and residents of Bradford East
Thank you