Birmingham Welcomes Its New MYPs

Voting closed at 2pm on Friday 2nd February and the results were declared at the Central Library at 5.30pm for Birmingham's five new 2007 MYPs as follows:

Eno (25%), Sahar (19%), Chris 18%), Richy (8%) and Lois (6%).  

It has also been verified that Birmingham can appoint up to seven Youth Parliament Deputies and therefore all seven remaining candidates will be invited to accept:

Beth, Lisa, Fatima, Brooke, Tyrone, Zaynah and Maryam.

The twelve candidates have excelled themselves during these elections in running the most impressive and hardworking campaigns since the UKYP elections first began.  Birmingham will benefit enormously from whichever candidates finally win.

It also shows the importance of these elections that two of the Birmingham MPs have said they will be coming to the declaration – Gisela Stuart, MP for Edgbaston and Lynne Jones, MP for Selly Oak.  Even the BBC are involved and the results will be shown on the big screen.

The UK Youth Parliament has been in existence since 2000 and was set up to give young people a voice about issues that are important.  Every Local Authority is involved and has at least one young person as their representative, a Member of the Youth Parliament (MYP).  The size of Birmingham means that we are entitled to 5 MYPs and we are also allowed Deputies: we are the biggest single group.

The Birmingham team and the Deputies meet regularly, and as a Birmingham group are involved with the Regional group that has young people from the 14 Local Authorities forming the West Midlands.

In addition the UKYP meets as a national group twice per year.  There is a summer residential and a meeting in London when they get to meet Ministers and Senior Civil Servants.

The Birmingham group are taking on an increasingly important role as many organisations recognise the need to involve young people.  For 2007 they will be serving on Council Committees, be involved in the regeneration debate, have a chance to influence Sex Education and support other initiatives to give young people a voice.  For example they will all be members of the YPP.

Your vote counts, and because we are entitled to 5 representatives, all young people aged between 11 to 19 - living or studying in Birmingham are entitled to vote up to 5 times – although you can’t give all 5 votes to one candidate.

Read what the candidates have to say for themselves and use your 5 votes.  Remember you can vote from home, from your school or college or at any of the 40 city Libraries.

Use your votes and watch out for the results, they will be your representatives and will be accountable to YOU!!!!