It has been over a month now since we met in London and I wanted to write to thank you all for your hard work and for making it such a meaningful and enjoyable couple of days.
I know from talking to yourselves and to staff from The Campaign Company that you found the event enjoyable which is great. I also want you to know that the witnesses from the select committee activity, as well as myself and the Secretary of State, John Hutton, thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and welcomed the opportunities to hear your views and ideas.
Everyone that has been involved with the event has said how worthwhile it was and the fact that so many of you have appeared in so many different magazines and on so many websites shows that we have already succeeded in helping to spread the message about the need to end child poverty. Obviously there is still far more that the Government and partner organisations need to do, but anything we can do to highlight the issue of child poverty has to be good.
When I wrote to each of you after the event, I invited you to contact me directly and gave you my e-mail address, this offer still stands.
I am keen to move forward with discussions on child poverty with as wide an audience as possible, to this end I intend to start my own Blog on the Department for Work and Pensions website which will allow me to speak to many more people than our individual Myspace page.
Once the Blog is set up, I will get the address posted onto this site so that you can all link to it, in the meantime we will be closing this site to new postings to enable us to focus on a new improved way of communicating in the future.
I will write out to all of you again in the near future when I send you copies of the report and the DVD that is being produced.
I look forward to hearing from you in the future.
Jim
A BIG THANK YOU!
Nik, Hannah, Jack, Emma, David and Aline would like to say a massive Thank You to everyone who came to the Child Poverty Matters event. It was a wicked two days and we really enjoyed meeting all of you and we hope that you had a good time. All the hard work that you put into the event has ensured that it was a success and the DWP are really pleased with what you have told them and the ideas that you have come up with – in their own words ‘the event has exceeded everyone’s expectations’ – so well done to everyone.
However – this is not the end of it. We have come a long way in just two days but there is still a lot more to be done so please keep visiting this site and looking out for updates from the DWP, from us and from each of you. We still need your ideas and thoughts and experiences and Jim really wants the conversation that we have started to continue. This is your chance to make a difference; take it and ensure that we can meet the targets set out and eradicate child poverty.
Again, thank you for coming to the event and we will be in touch very soon about the final report and DVD.
Child Poverty Matters Team
The what?
The event was put on by the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) and gave young people chance to tell the government what they think about the really important issue of poverty and deprivation
DWP has a target to eliminate child poverty by 2020 and they really want to hear what young people think they should do to achieve this. This is where you come in.
The who?
25 young people from all over the UK aged between 13 and 16
The where?
Central London. The residential took place in Westminster and included a tour of the House of Commons.
Another what? What happened... -
Youth Select Committee – Young people were given the opportunity to question the Minister about what he is doing to tackle this problem. This was their chance to get the government answering their questions.
Bridging the Poverty gap – Young people built a bridge, to give their ideas about how the poverty gap could be bridged.
Videoqube – Young people were able to enter the ‘diary room’ and tell us their thoughts on tackling poverty!
Message from Jim Murphy, Minister for Employment and Welfare Reform
"I am delighted you will be joining me for what promises to be two fun, but important days.
I am absolutely determined as is the whole of this Government to do everything we can to eradicate child poverty by 2020. We have made good progress; since 1997 levels of poverty in the UK have fallen faster than any other major European country however there is still a long way to go.
It is not right or fair that, in a country as rich as ours, some children grow up without being able to afford the type of things that most of us take for granted which is why we are looking again at what we are doing to help.
The time you will spend in London will be used to help inform a review the Department for Work and Pensions is currently doing on its policies to move children out of poverty. I hope that you will take advantage of this opportunity to challenge both Ministers and key charity organisations over what they are doing.
I invited you to London because you are well placed to give us frank and honest feedback and tell us what you think we are doing well and what more you think we can do.
I look forward to meeting you and hearing your views as well as seeing the results of the work you are putting in ahead of the event."
About us
Some of the people who worked on the residential were...
Hannah Charnock
Nik Clifton
Jack Upton
