To ask the Assembly Commission to detail how the Assembly Commission’s Engagement Strategy 2015-16 is increasing engagement with (i) young people; (ii) older people; and (iii) other under-represented groups.

The Assembly Commission’s Engagement Strategy 2015-16 includes a commitment to “build partnerships with relevant stakeholders to create and improve engagement opportunities with citizens and under-represented groups”. This work is primarily undertaken by the Education Service and Assembly Community Connect, managed by the Outreach Service.

Engagement with young people is primarily, but not exclusively undertaken by the Education Service through an inward and outward visit programme for schools, universities, Colleges of Further and Higher Education and the informal youth sector.

In the academic year 2014-15, nearly 15,200 participants in 449 groups took part in the Assembly’s Education Programme; 12,500 on educational visits to Parliament Buildings and just over 2,500 as part of the outreach programme. The programme is available in English and Irish.

The Education Service has worked with Assembly Committees to gain young people’s views on a range of issues and enquiries, for example, Shared and Integrated Education and the School Inspectorate, the Road Traffic Bill’s proposed changes for learner and new drivers and the Together Building a United Community Strategy.

The Service works with the NEETs Forum (young people not in employment, education or training) to encourage hard to reach groups to engage with democratic politics. This involves outreach visits to NEET groups and encouraging forum members to participate in special projects.

Further engagement with young people is underway as part of an Erasmus+ Connections’ Project, which aims to promote dialogue between decision makers and young people. Young people were challenged to research an issue of their choice and communicate their findings to the Assembly. The young people focussed on mental health and will deliver their findings to Assembly Committees in early 2016.

The Education Service organises a series of Let’s Talk events around Northern Ireland to bring together young people and their MLAs. In 2014-15, these events involved around 100 young people and were held in Ballymena, Belfast, Derry/Londonderry, Newry and Omagh. We hope to increase the number of these events to eight this year.

This year we worked with Belfast City Council and Cinemagic on the ‘Reel Politics’ project. It involved 24 young women from across Northern Ireland to explore the under-representation of women in politics by producing three films on the topics of Social Media, Domestic Abuse and lack of female representation in the Science, Technology, Engineering Arts and Maths sector. The films were screened on International Women’s Day on 6 March.

In November we will facilitate the Northern Ireland Youth Forum’s Youth Congress annual sitting in the Assembly Chamber to coincide with the UK Youth Parliament debate in the House of Commons Chamber, Westminster. More than 100 young people from a range of youth organisations will be involved.

Educational Resources

We continue to develop new educational materials like the Education website to support teaching and learning about the Assembly and will launch four new videos for young people this year.

We have published an iBook – A Guide to the Assembly and Parliament Buildings - for students aged 16+ and an updated edition and e-book version will be available in March 2016.

Older People

The Assembly Community Connect (ACC) programme works to enhance connections between the Assembly and the Community and Voluntary sector through education and outreach.

In October, to mark the International Day of Older Persons, ACC brought together members of the Age Sector Platform and members of the Northern Ireland Youth Forum to Parliament Buildings to debate a motion as Northern Ireland’s inaugural Intergenerational Parliament. Members of Age Sector Platform will return to Parliament Buildings in December for its annual Pensioners’ Parliament.

Other under-represented groups

While ACC works with groups and individuals from across the Community and Voluntary sector, from 2014 to the present time, it has chosen to focus on engagement with women, persons with disabilities and the black and minority ethnic sector. In that time, ACC has engaged with nearly 6,000 people.

We have arranged and participated in a range of events focussed on these sectors, including a ‘Women in Politics’ panel event as part of Women of the World festival, Corrymeela’s ‘Stop Peace Unravelling’ event, the Belfast Mela, Chinese New Year, One Assembly; Many People event to mark Community Relations week, which included communities from across Northern Ireland sharing their culture through performances in Parliament Buildings.

We have developed tailored training programmes for a range of organisations including Guide Dogs for the Blind and Disability Sport NI, the letter involved Members and individuals taking part in a wheel-chair slalom in the Long Gallery.

Most recently, we have been working with the NOW project on its Reading Rooms initiative to promote social inclusion and support people with learning disabilities.

Citizens and a wide range of representative groups continue to take part in ACC’s free monthly training programmes offered to community and voluntary groups to raise awareness of how to engage with and facilitate participation with the Assembly.

This is just a sample of the engagement work undertaken by the Assembly and the Information and Outreach Directorate continues to proactively seek and identify opportunities for working with citizens and groups from across Northern Ireland and welcomes Members’ suggestions for and participation in engagement events and projects.