America!

Music, fashion, food, politics… you name it and it’s probably from America these days! A large part of our social culture is based on American trends and concerns. Mainly because when you scroll down your twitter timeline, or browse Instagram and Facebook the first things you see are American celebrities such as the Kardashians or Justin Bieber posting things themselves or news channels and entertainment profiles posting about them. So all their thoughts, likes, dislikes, favourite colours, what they ate for lunch, we know all about it…

If Kylie Jenner tweets something about American politics we’ll know about it. Slowly but surely all these celeb concerns and opinions are becoming our concerns and opinions .We’ve become more clued up about Obama and Trump than our own Mayor and Prime Minister! The politics that actually affect our lives and the area we live in, should be just as important to us as the politics happening in a completely different continent!

As young people our thoughts and opinions mean something, our concerns are important. So we should make a lot more effort to be involved in the politics happening on home soil, the politics that is going to affect us at home, in school and as we grow.

If you’re over 18 now, you’ll have the chance to vote in the EU referendum – something which could have an affect on your life for years to come.

If you’re aged 11 – 19 , think our borough is important and you have some great ideas and contributions you think you can bring to Hackney politics, be confident about it and fill in the application for Hackney Youth Parliament. The elections begin soon! And we want enthusiastic candidates, we want gladiators! You can change more than you think.