Platform 51

News

Wednesday, 30 March 2011
Platform 51 is telling the Truth About Youth

Celebration event in Cardiff

Last night Platform 51 Cymru celebrated one year of running the Truth About Youth project in Cardiff, which is funded by the Co-operative foundation. The Truth About Youth project challenges negative perceptions of young people in the area. Over the last year the project has worked with nearly 200 young people (boys and girls). The young people work in Truth Teams and they undertake truth challenges (community research) around important issues.

Platform 51 staff, young people from the project and supporters attended the event at the national museum of Wales in Cardiff. The large windows and historical artefacts made it an impressive location for the event and helped to create a great atmosphere. The work from the different truth challenges was on show on different stands for the people to look around.

The evening started with a speech from Pat McArdle, Platform 51's director of services. She congratulated Taela-Mae Hindle for winning the part time youth worker of the year at this year's Youth Work Wales Excellence Awards and then went on to talk about why Truth About Youth is so important.

Pat was followed on stage by Andrew Ridge from Envision who run the Truth About Youth programme. He is very pleased with the partnership with Platform 51 and happy to see so many young people at the event.

The young people themselves were then recognised for all of their hard work. Keith Towler the children's commissioner for Wales very kindly came along to present an awards ceremony. The young people received a Platform 51 Cymru certificate for taking part in Truth about Youth and some received an OCN accreditation. There was a fantastic buzz around the museum as the different truth teams came up to get their awards.

To round up the evening Rhodri Morgan, the Welsh Labour politician made an evocative speech about how proud he is of projects like Truth About Youth, he said: "Truth about Youth is a really valuable project helping young people to develop their self-confidence and their pride in the contribution they are making to our society.  They are doing a wonderful job and I wish them all the very best with it." It was quite an emotional speech as it was his last public appearance before standing down from his role. The Platform 51 team showed their gratitude for all of Rhodri's support over the years by presenting him with a card and a present.

Kathryn Hobbs, Platform 51 senior project worker, said about the event: "we are so pleased that The Co-operative Foundation has funded Truth about Youth in Cardiff.  The young people involved have done some fantastic work and the celebration event provided an opportunity to tell everyone about their positive achievements and the contribution they make.  We are pleased so many people came along."

Overall the event was an outstanding success. The turnout was great and the enthusiasm from the young people and Platform 51 staff was infectious. Seeing the different generations of people in one room having a good time together shows that Truth About Youth is working in Cardiff.