Five Rivers’ Young Person Activist Tanisha visits the Parliament

Monday 10 September 2018

Tanisha, a 14 year-old girl in foster care in the South West has committed her time to support a children’s campaigning movement to protect children’s rights in the UK.

She has written this for our blog:

On Thursday 13th April I flew to London to attend a meeting with the Children’s Rights Alliance for England (CRAE)  at the Houses of Parliament. We were discussing and planning for the ‘Housing and Homelessness’ campaign which is to stop children who are living in B&Bs for more than the government’s time limit of 6 weeks.

The day started with a tour of The Houses of Parliament which we were shown the three parts of parliament; the Monarchy, The House of Lords and The Houses of Commons.

I found the tour very intriguing, there was lots of information. We  were told anyone can go and watch a debate  in the House of Commons free from the public gallery (behind a glass wall).

After this we took part in a democracy workshop where we learnt about voting and how this works in the chambers.

In the afternoon  we split into groups to decide how we could get the campaign word spread and more children signing up to it in order to get the government to listen and facilitate change for homeless children and families.

There is going to be a Lobbying Event at parliament on Wednesday 12th July where the campaign  will be brought to MP’s and Prime Ministers’ Question Time.

Five Rivers Child Care helps young people build resilience through participating in action for change – boosting self-esteem and forging strong social ties. Find out more about our participation programme for children in care.

Find out more about CRAE’s homelessness campaign  http://www.crae.org.uk/get-involved/sign-up-to-change-it/