A Young Leader’s Journey:

Amanda from Prendergast School

Creating the Vision

September 2009: Amanda and other students from year 9 and one

teacher come together with 5 other schools to build a vision for

their ‘citizen school’

Getting TrainedSeptember - November 2009:

Amanda and other student leaders are trained by the Citizen Schools

team in power, listening to communities and planning –

together with parents, teachers and governors

Connecting to the London Citizens Community

AllianceOctober 2009: Amanda’s growing team of 15 students connect with

South London Citizens and meet a key power player: the Mayor of Lewisham

Leading teaching sessions

October – November 2009: Amanda and other students act as peer

teachers, leading year 8 students in communicating opinions about their local community, investigating it and working out what should be changed

about it.

Amanda’s Diary Entry

“Just before Christmas we narrowed down these issues into four clear

campaigns and met to decide how we would get people to listen to us.

What followed was by far the hardest part of our journey. We made

phone calls, sent letters, emails and slowly built up contacts. We asked

if we could attend community meetings, and turned up at any public

meeting we could find. We visited local Primary Schools, Churches,

Shops, and Youth Clubs. We did this again and again until very slowly

things began to change and peoples reaction began to shift. People had

begun to invite us to attend their meetings, people had started to ask us

for contacts. Somehow we had gained a critical mass, we now had

credibilility, we were finally being taken seriously. From this point things

started to move very quickly and our campaigns began to take on a life

of there own. Suddenly we were being invited every where, doors were

opening and people were begining to not only listen but genuinely

commit. ” Amanda, Year 9

Building relationships in the real world

January 2010: the Amanda’s team work with local neighbourhood allies to listen to

their community – here seen on a

local community work with

shopkeepers in Lewisham

Discussing and deciding ways forward

January 2010: Amanda’s team focus their ideas for change and prepare plans to

get their ideas supported by power

players. The team decides to forcus on establishing City Safe

Havens near their school – working with shopkeepers to report

crime and protect young people.

Learning the art of planning and negotiation

Amanda’s team and other South London schools work together to role play and practice their power player negotiation

tactics

Negotiating change with real power players

February 2010: Amanda and the

Prendergast team negotiate as part

of their south London Citizens

community alliance to get the Mayor’s backing for their

City Safe initiative

Making Change Happen!!

April 2010: Students’ collaboration with a huge range of community allies

on the City Safe idea – including primary schools, churches, local councillors

and the local safer neighbourhood team – is

recognised in the local press.

June 2010: Students are now preparing to come to

the Citizens Youth Assembly and working

hard to ensure turnout of 50 students, parents and

teachers to ensure the alliance is POWERFUL. The team are also bringing new

allies –primary schools, churches, local councillors to build their local alliance

even further.