Hi, my name is Jasmia and I’m the chair of the YES Outdoors Youth Advisory Board. I’m it’s oldest member at 19 years of age, with the majority being made up of young people from North London aged 18 and under.

Through our work on the Youth Advisory Board, we play an important role in representing young people’s voices, and getting our message heard.

We all joined the Youth Board because we believe in the work that YES Outdoors is doing, and want to ensure that young people’s voices are front-and-centre as the charity continues to grow.

We want to find meaningful ways to help make North London a happier, safer and healthier place for all its residents, and to give young people more positive opportunities.  The youth advisory board empowers us as individuals to speak up on behalf of our friends and families. We hold regular sessions with the staff and volunteers at YES Outdoors, and have been motivated by their encouragement and positive responses to our ideas.

The launch of the board came about during a social action project that was entirely youth-led and supported wholeheartedly by YES Outdoors. The project rallied over 30 young people together to create care packages for elderly residents during the challenging winter of 2020.  With the charity’s support, we were able to create and deliver over 100 bags. This was a great first project for us to really understand just how much is achievable when we work as a team with the right support from adults.  In 2021, we doubled that number and delivered another 200 care packages.

We are very proud of our contributions so far and have ambitious plans for the future.  We’re determined to design and shape programmes that reflect what is really going on with our generation, and the challenges that we uniquely face as young north Londoners.

We hope that this Youth Advisory Board can be used as a platform to help young people to realise their full potential. We want more young people to recognise that their voices matter, and that they can have a direct impact on the community we all share – for our generation and those following in our footsteps.

We want to thank YES Outdoors for welcoming us, and you, the reader, for allowing us to introduce ourselves. We’re excited to expand the board as we find other young passionate people to join us.

Jasmia, and all of us at the YES Outdoors YAB.