Rachel Henry is the Head of Community Partnerships at Fight for Peace, and plays an important role in mobilising the youth sector through the Newham Youth Partnership (NYP). We caught up with her to find out some of the latest news about the partnership, and how the NYP works alongside young people to increase their impact.

“We are thrilled to have relaunched the Newham Youth Partnership in June, a collaboration between youth organisations in Newham. Our aim is to create a strong, skilled, well connected youth sector that collaborates to deliver the best opportunities for young people and families.

We are guided by youth voice, and work with Future Light, our youth leadership group, to ensure young people can influence change in Newham.

We want to make sure that as a youth sector we are better connected to ensure that we avoid duplicating work, and share our resources and expertise to enhance our services. As the partnership continues to grow, we are able to identify more organisations doing brilliant work with young people in the borough, and there are now over 40 organisations involved, all providing unique activities and support for young people and their families.

We are currently in the process of developing a charter for the NYP, alongside producing t-shirts and other branding materials that raise awareness of the work we do. It’s important for us to feel connected to our cause and these things are a physical reminder of our unity in our shared mission to provide the best opportunities for young people and families in Newham. 

A big part of our work is developing a culture of solidarity and strong relationships – our collaboration is only as strong as the relationships that form it.

In September, we’ll be connecting our youth leadership group, Future Light, with organisations across the NYP with the aim to have young people at the centre of influencing change in Newham. We do this through getting young people and decision makers in the same room for conversations that can help build understanding around young people’s experiences in Newham, and what needs to change. 

Future Light will be building relationships with partners and presenting their work with Kailo, a design and research project led by University College London, where they worked together over a six month period to develop ideas to address the gaps in services and support for young people affected by violence in Newham. We will be working with Future Light and members of the NYP to implement plans to address the gaps in services that the young people have identified.

We are actively recruiting more young people from across partnership organisations to join Future Light, while establishing different boards that young people can input into, and the different enquiries that they can be involved to make a change.

A significant development has been bringing the group’s input to the Scrutiny Review to Improve Lives of Newham’s Young Black Men and Boys. This project provides the space for young people to work alongside NYP organisation, Rights and Equalities in Newham (REIN), to reflect on some of the issues affecting young Black men in our communities, and share some of the changes they’d like to see in policy in order to ensure a safe and equitable society. 

That’s not all, in September Future Light will be starting a ‘Truth on the Roof’ project in collaboration with another NYP partner organisation, You Press. Young people will develop their own creative content to explore and amplify issues that are important to them. The videos produced will be a powerful representation of young people’s responses to the social, environmental and political factors that impact their lives.

Projects like these welcome young people into important and impactful conversations to influence us at all levels of our community, and we can’t wait to see the NYP continue to grow.”

On behalf of the Newham Youth Partnership, we would like to extend our gratitude to the City Bridge Foundation for funding this important work. For more information on how to get involved, please contact Rachel at rachel.henry@fightforpeace.net.