RSBC Unseen

RSBC Unseen Podcast | Kolo talks about community | S.05 E.03

• Royal Society For Blind Children • Season 5 • Episode 3

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0:00 | 14:19

On this weeks episode, Juliette spoke to Kolo about his work with Wrexham Youth Parliament. They chatted about how he got involved, what the group is up to and what else Kolo does in his spare time.


https://youngwrexham.co.uk/info/yourvoiceyourwrexham/senedd-yr-ifanc/

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Juliette:

Oh,

Juliette Parfitt:

Hello and welcome to the RSBC Unseen podcast. My name is Juliette. I work here at RSBC, and today I'm going to be talking to Kolo, who is a young person from Wales. So today I'm going to be chatting to Kolo about what he gets up to in some of his community work at Kolo. Hi, thanks for joining us.

Kolo:

Hi. My name is Kolo. I'm 16. I live in Wrexham,

Juliette Parfitt:

Yay! Cool, What do you get up to? What are you studying at the moment?

Kolo:

So in college, I'm studying A-Level. I'm doing maths, politics and psychology.

Juliette Parfitt:

Woah, that's heavy going. Nice.

Kolo:

Yeah, I'm in my first year, so I've done a few months so far, and they're all really interesting.

Juliette Parfitt:

Oh, cool. What are your plans for after A-Levels?

Kolo:

So after a levels, I want to study an LLB bachelors, undergraduate degree in Law at the London School of Economics.

Juliette Parfitt:

Oh, nice. You're gonna move to London, the big smoke.

Kolo:

Hopefully, yeah.

Juliette Parfitt:

It's a good place. I am biased because I live here, though. So you're studying Law. What made you want to study law?

Kolo:

So I've recognised across the UK a lack of human rights and how human rights are being upheld. So I want to go into law to try and bridge the gaps in human rights, specifically companies and when they don't uphold the rights of employers, employees, sorry

Juliette Parfitt:

How did your attention get drawn to that?

Kolo:

A lot of it's in the news, but there's also a lot. Through my work with Wrexham's youth parliament, there's under representation, so that's also a major factor in why I want to go into human rights law is the under representation, especially of minorities, in institutions.

Juliette Parfitt:

That's really cool. So you mentioned that you work with reps and Youth Parliament. Can you tell us a little bit about, like, what it is, and then how you got involved in it as well?

Kolo:

Yeah, across Wales, many of the councils have youth parliaments, and it's where young people, right now in Wrexham, it's aged 11 to 18, can have their say on issues that affect them. We represent the young people that we talk to. We're not there to give our views solely, but we need to also make sure we're representing the other young people of Wrexham, and we've worked on many issues. For example, young people thought there was an issue with knife crime in Wrexham, which there wasn't, but we needed to raise awareness to that. So that's one of the projects that I think is still ongoing.

Juliette Parfitt:

And I think that's really cool that you're aware of, like you as an individual, but also like representing other young people and kind of gathering views and bringing them together. It's like, I'm not here just as me. I'm here for all of, like, other young people and different experiences and like, being really aware of that. I think that's really cool. And I also like that you kind of vote gather ideas on, like, what you want to look at. And even when perceptions are a bit different, it's like, you still take that into an account. It's like, actually, there's not a knife crime problem, but people think there is. So this is clearly still important for young people. Like, I think that's really special. Like, not a lot of bigger organisations or institutions do that. So I think that's really cool.

Kolo:

Yeah, I think it's really important. Because even though there wasn't an issue with knife crime itself, there was an issue where people perceived a rise in knife crime,so we needed to raise awareness to that. And the Knife Angel was a project that the centres helped organise, and we brought a knife angel to Wrexham. It was in the town centre for a few weeks, and it helped young people see it as a symbol that there hasn't been a rise in knife crime.

Juliette Parfitt:

Oh, that's really cool. That's like, kind of Yes, symbolic representation of it to help remind people

Kolo:

Yeah

Juliette Parfitt:

I love that. I think it's interesting. The thing with knife crime, because it's like a reflection on, like, maybe if young people feel safe or not, even if it's like, technically, a knife crime is not, has not increased. It's like a reflection of, like, the feeling of personal safety. So it's like nice to kind of take that seriously.

Kolo:

Yeah, and on that point this morning, we all had an email saying that the results of the latest ballot is that young people don't feel safe in Wrexham. So that's going to be one of our focus is for the next two years.

Juliette Parfitt:

Okay, how often do you kind of do ballots or votes, or kind of gather opinions from young people in Wrexham?

Kolo:

So we do have biannual ballot. It's designed for a few months, and then it's released around October time, and it helps us decide what young people feel is the issue that's affecting them the most, and what our priority should be for the next two years. This time, we've got three priorities, one of them being young people feeling safer in Wrexham. Another one is education, but that one's been decided by Wrexham Council instead of the ballot.

Juliette Parfitt:

Oh, so sometimes they're like other organisations will kind of give you things that they want you to look at.

Kolo:

Yeah

Juliette Parfitt:

Does that generally, is that all right? Like, do you guys think, ah, do you know what? Actually, that's a good point. We do want to look at that. Or is it? Sometimes it's like, did we want to do that?

Kolo:

So sometimes we have people coming in telling us about things they're working on and how we can support them. In Wrexham, specifically in the Wrexham Council, there's a complaints procedure that we're currently reviewing because young people and adults felt that it was no longer fit for purpose. And sometimes there are some council weren't actually accepting the complaints forms anymore, so we needed to reform them. And that's one of our current smaller projects.

Juliette Parfitt:

Oh, wow, that's really, like, reactive to, like, what's going on. I think that's cool that you're kind of co- producing that with the council.

Kolo:

Yeah, and also the other local authority groups come in to help support and give a more diverse range of views.

Juliette Parfitt:

Is there any other work you've done with the youth parliament that you're like, particularly proud of, or you think like you want to particularly highlight? Sounds like you guys do a lot.

Kolo:

I think one of the major events that we've done, and definitely a highlight, is raising awareness of the cost of living. So in the last ballot, young people felt that the cost of living was the biggest issue affecting them in Wrexham, and so we needed to raise awareness of how families could save money, or how families could make sure that they're making the most of the money that they have. It that's more of an ongoing project, because we needed to do a consultation to find out more about what young people are concerned on. So that's going to be ongoing, alongside the three issues this over the next two years.

Juliette Parfitt:

Have you done any of the consultations yet with young people?

Kolo:

Yeah, so we've done the cost of living consultation, and the results are still being collated.

Juliette Parfitt:

Can you tell me a little bit about how the consultation process works.

Kolo:

Yeah, we designed the consultation so there's two groups of the centres, really, there's the steering group, which works on more of the back end, and then there's the whole centres. Before the reform that happened this year, the whole centres would input and they'd give us questions or suggestions for we should put on the consultation. We design this and come up with the questions, and then bring it back to the whole centre. Once it was finalised, we first of all, there's an online consultation, but we also give it to schools. There's an info shopping reps and where you can fill out the consultation. So we get a wide range of young people filling out the consultation.

Juliette Parfitt:

Do you find you get quite a lot of responses, or do you have to kind of work quite hard to get people to interact with it?

Kolo:

Sometimes it's difficult to get especially older people between 16 and 25 we need to make sure that we push for those that demographic to respond. But generally, the younger people between 11 and 16 are quite good at responding, because the consultations are sent to the school.

Juliette Parfitt:

Yeah, yeah. So they seem like quite engaged, and the schools are working to engage them.

Kolo:

Yeah. And the last the biannual ballot that we've just done, there was around 2500 responses.

Juliette Parfitt:

Oh, wow, that's really good. That's amazing. What do you think would help with, like, engaging that sort of 16 to 25 age range?

Kolo:

I think a lot of the time there's a political disconnect in that age range. Sometimes they feel that their views and opinions aren't listened to, especially when they hear the word Parliament, that a lot of the time, they don't feel like they're going to be listened to. So I think a lot of it's going to be getting feedback from colleges. I'm trying to make sure that colleges push for young people to engage with not just our consultations, but politics generally.

Juliette Parfitt:

I think that's a challenge everywhere, a little bit, isn't it?

Kolo:

Yeah, it definitely is. At the moment.

Juliette Parfitt:

Hopefully we can get young people a bit more engaged. Now the voting age might be lowered to 16. That's exciting.

Kolo:

Yeah, hopefully, I think it makes sense for 16 year olds to be able to vote because they can work, and a lot of Parliament or government's pledges is relating to work, so it's important they have their say.

Juliette Parfitt:

Totally agree. So what motivated you to join the Youth Parliament and like, want to make a difference, like in your community generally?

Kolo:

Before I joined the Youth Parliament, I was part of my school's school council, and one of the members of the school council sat on breakfast and Youth Parliament, and he told us all about an open evening for the parliament, where one of the meetings was going to be open for anyone to join, to get a feel of what they do and they'd like to join. So it was actually Halloween three years ago, where I went to the to taster session and from there, I just been going ever since.

Juliette Parfitt:

Ah, so you just had like, a natural kind of like, interest and like, I guess if you're interested in kind of human rights and employment rights, it's like that inclination was kind of always there for you to be like, I'm not going to go. I want to make a difference. I want to check this out.

Kolo:

Yeah, I like to make sure that everyone's represented and advocated for so employees to employers, or the people of a country, to the institutions of the state. I think it's really important that everyone has their say.

Juliette Parfitt:

I totally agree. Aside from your work with youth parliament and within your community, what else do you get up to? I think you said you do coding. Can you tell me a little bit about like, learning to code, like, why you did it, how you kind of adapt it for your visual impairment, and like, what you've done with it?

Kolo:

Yeah, so anyone who decides to code is taking up a massive it's almost like a project, a personal project, because it's such a long process. But when you're visually impaired, it's even longer, because you need to find specific materials that are accessible. So I learned to code simply out of interest for technology. I find it fascinating that anyone can code apps, for example, they don't need to be trained like a university level or have huge qualifications. So I learned coding a few years ago. Ever since then, I've decided I built some apps. I've got a clock app, which basically just tells the time in a font size of your choice, which I think would be really useful as an accessibility tool. I built it for meetings to make sure that I know exactly what time it is for agenda and things.

Juliette Parfitt:

Oh, that's amazing. That's so practical. I love that.

Kolo:

Yeah. And I think that's the good thing about coding. It's practical, and it's your choice on what you build and how you build it.

Juliette Parfitt:

Yeah. So can I ask kind of how you adapt for your VI with learning to code? Because if anyone's listening, who's VI wants to give it a go, it might be good for them to have some tips on like, how to make certain things accessible.

Kolo:

Definitely, when I first was learning to code, there was a lot of materials out there, for example, YouTube videos that didn't have voiceovers or weren't really accessible. However, once you find the right materials, there's a lot of YouTube videos out there where people talk through it slowly, once you have the right materials, then you can follow along, non visually. The I've started learning a new programming language. It's Swift. It's Apple's own programming language that they use for all their devices. And because it's Apple's own software, they've made it really accessible.

Juliette Parfitt:

They're great for accessibility. Apple, that's amazing. I didn't know they had their own coding language.

Kolo:

Yeah

Juliette Parfitt:

That's awesome. Is there anything you would like to kind of progress on to with coding, or, like, learn how to do as you go, or you just kind of having fun and seeing where it takes you.

Kolo:

It's more of a hobby. I'm just seeing where it can take me. I don't plan on using coding directly in a career. However, I do think it'd be useful for the little tasks like the clock, to keep track of time in meetings and things like that. I think knowing how to code will be useful so that you can code your own apps when you need them.

Juliette Parfitt:

I love that. No one really talks about coding as, like, the way to help make your life a little easier. I think that's really cool. Like, as you progress through, like, college and uni and work, you may just be like, Oh, this thing doesn't exist. Like, why not have you know what? I can code that. And it's like, really cool.

Kolo:

Yeah, there's definite gaps in software, especially accessible software, so it's a really useful tool.

Juliette Parfitt:

Awesome. Thanks, Kolo for coming and chatting to us about your work with the youth parliament and just generally, what you get up to and all that good stuff. I hope that you've enjoyed sharing your experience with us.

Kolo:

Yes, thank you for the opportunity

Juliette Parfitt:

Cracking! catch you later, everybody. We'll catch you in the next episode.

Kolo:

Bye.