‘IT’s been a busy time recently and I’ve been working hard both in the constituency and at the recent sitting of the Scottish Youth Parliament.

Within the SYP I am part of the Sport and Leisure committee and our hopes for the next few months are to set up youth led sports councils in the area.

This could be two sports councils, one for Beath High and its catchment area and one for Lochgelly, or it could be one large sports council, covering the whole Cowdenbeath constituency, this is still to be decided.

Our aim through to Easter is to try to promote minority sports and to engage with many more young people, finding new sports that may spark an interest within them.

The Sport and Leisure committee also have a link with Scottish Rugby and we are working to create links with Scottish Basketball. We feel the best way to reach young people is through these sports councils. Many places, mainly in Edinburgh and Glasgow, already have these sports councils in place and we hope to start them all around Scotland.

As a starting point, I would like to find out if the Ambassadors are interested in helping to lead the Lochgelly/Cowdenbeath Area Sports Council alongside myself and a few others that are interested. We hope that this will give the ambassadors another way of engaging more people in sport and encouraging people to become more active. We would also like to hold sports council meetings every month or so, however this can be changed to suit everyone’s needs locally.

The recent national sitting of the Youth Parliament was hosted by Perth and Kinross Council. Members debated a record number of motions over the period of the sitting and decided upon their new national campaign. We will be looking to tackle Child and Youth Poverty with the current campaign, Cair.Fair.Share coming to an end. We also enjoyed a night of ceilidh dancing and socialising in the evening.

Members’ motions discussed at the sitting included: Compulsory First Aid; Work experience for young people; Legal Highs; Women in the workforce; Car insurance for young drivers; Healthy Lifestyles; the Gaelic Language and travel discounts for young people attending cultural events.

SYP is also currently campaigning to ensure that young carers are treated fairly by society and Government policies and that their caring situations do not prevent them from further education and engaging in social activities. We are taking a few different approaches to reduce financial strain on young carers, including: addressing anomalies in the administration of the Educational Maintenance Allowance, that result in many young carers losing their EMA entitlement; additional funding and bursary opportunities for young carers struggling to afford further education due to their caring responsibilities; and, avenues to alleviate the cost of travel for young carers between school, work, and home, to fulfil their caring and education duties.  The Scottish Youth Parliament are currently looking to try and recruit candidates for the forthcoming elections to the Youth Parliament in March 2015. It was this process two years ago that got me to where I am just now. I would like to encourage any young person between 14-25 years who is passionate, dedicated to making positive changes for young people and who aren’t scared to get their hands dirty and shout about what they believe in, to get onto the SYP website and register to stand. Lastly, next week (3rd-9th) November marks National Youth Work Week! Youth Work Week is all about young people participating in activities within their communities or beyond. There will be activities taking place all over Fife to mark Youth Work Week. I will be heading along to the Annual Fife Youth Forum meeting at the Rothes Halls, on Tuesday 4th November to chat over local issues with our Local Elected members as well as young people from Youth Forums all over Fife. Then on Thursday 6th November I will join in the local Yoscars ceremony taking place at the Town Hall at 7pm. The Yoscars ceremony acknowledges the participation of young people in activities throughout the Cowdenbeath area. If you are free why not pop along to an event. There is plenty information on the FYWW webpage.’