CARMARTHENSHIRE’S young people voice their opinions at this year’s annual youth conference.
 
Over 100 young people from schools and youth organisations came to Parc-y-Scarlets on November 16 to have their questions answered by influential figures from across Carmarthenshire.

This year’s conference was entitled ‘Making choices today for a better tomorrow’, and encouraged attendees to talk about education, employment, volunteering and training.

Various workshops took place that saw adults letting young people take the lead and talk about issues that matter to them personally.  Concerns surrounding unemployment in the current climate, flexibility of school working and work experience opportunities ranked amongst the most discussed topics on the day.  Other issues included the importance of vocational training in schools, the recognition of work experience and the accessibility of apprenticeships.

The event also included an open forum where the audience could ask questions at will to a panel of adults from Carmarthenshire County Council, Rathbone Cymru, CAVS and Coleg Sir Gar.

A ‘Twitter station’, provided by Carmarthenshire Youth Council, provided young attendees with an alternative way of submitting their questions to the panel via the social network Twitter by adding #makingchoices to their tweets.

Charlene Davies, Chairperson of Carmarthenshire Youth Council, said “We make every effort to ensure that the voices of young people in Carmarthenshire are listened to by the people that can make changes.  We’d like to thank everyone who was involved in the event – we couldn’t have done it without them!”

Councillor Gwynne Wooldridge, who was on hand to close this year’s conference, said: “I’ve had the pleasure of attending a number of these conferences and I can honestly say they get better every year.”

“Events like this are essential because they allow us to ensure we’re making the right choices for young people in Carmarthenshire and help us decide where we need to allocate funds in future budgets.”