Your Turn - UK

Your Turn reaches out to young people (attending school in Year 9, or S2 in Scotland) at a time when their horizons are expanding and exposes them to a new set of influences: the people who make the decisions that govern their world (chief constables, business executives, and community leaders, among others). Common Purpose hopes that the resulting encounters will open minds on both sides. The campaign is delivered through city-wide programmes and conferences. All elements of Your Turn are designed to support the delivery of citizenship in the school curriculum, as follows:

First, Common Purpose sets the dates of 3 programme days (time-tabled across a 2-week period) in collaboration with the participating schools. As of this writing, Your Turn is running programmes in London, Northern Ireland, Scotland, West Yorkshire, West Midlands, and North East England. There is a fee (starting from £50 per participant) associated with participation. Between 3 and 6 participants in a school are recruited on the basis of their potential as leaders, and they join 27/24 others, making a group of 30 students. The schools involved are chosen to ensure that the participants reflect the full diversity of the area. Goals include:

• enabling young people to make a positive contribution as active citizens in their communities
• giving young people a deeper understanding of the systems and structures that influence them and their communities while learning about the initiatives that enable them to create change
• helping young people appreciate their cities' diversity and strengths
• providing young people with an opportunity to understand decision-making processes.

The themes of the 3-day programme are power and change. Hosts include hospitals, private sector companies, and prisons. A key element of each day is a series of visits to places of relevance such as hostels, courts and trading floors. At these venues, participants are given a practical overview of citizenship and decision-making, in part through meetings with senior decision-makers. The programme draws on the expertise of past participants of the adult Common Purpose programme, who are community leaders from all fields.

Your Turn also takes the form of 1-day conferences that are designed to trigger large groups of young people to take action. The conference enables between 60 and 100 participants to engage in problem solving followed by creative solutions to tackle issues that the young people have identified as being crucial to the improvement of their area or community group. Through case study-based investigation, these conferences aim to give young people a better sense of how complex and interconnected society is; to provide first-hand opportunities to address problems in schools and communities; and to give young people an opportunity to have their voices heard and to develop presentation skills for a wider audience. The conferences also enable schools to forge links with local private, public, and voluntary sector organisations.

Youth, Civic Action.

Common Purpose is an educational organisation that runs programmes for leaders, providing them with information, competencies, and networks to help them improve the way society works. Its charter includes:

• "We believe a healthy democracy needs informed and active citizens.
• We reject prejudice, bullying, defamation and illegal, violent or destructive actions.
• We are independent, non-aligned, constructive and for everyone."