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18 February 2010, 06:00
Six Hertfordshire students are celebrating after being elected to represent the county as MYPs – Members of the UK Youth Parliament.
Six deputy MYPs have also been elected.
Such as Christopher Porter, who's 16 and from Hemel Hempstead: "Our job is to get the views from everyone in Hertfordshire. We look at what young people need, such as bus travel. We want cheaper prices for that. I believe every year Youth Parliament should be making it clearer for every year to have a say. We are the future of tomorrow, but that means we need looking after now so we can grow up to be proper adults that can run the country in the future."
MYPs are elected to speak up for young people in Hertfordshire and this year for the second time, the elections were held online. A total of 19 candidates campaigned on a variety of issues, promoting their manifestos on the county’s youth portal at www.channelmogo.org with videos and written statements.
Voting ran from January 11 to February 5th. As last year, the voting period was extended beyond the planned finish time to the school closures caused by the extreme weather conditions. Despite weather being worse this year, the number of votes cast increased by 15.1 percent.
Announcing the results, Richard Thake, Executive member for Education and Skills, congratulated the new young parliamentarians and gave certificates of achievement to all candidates who had taken part:
“I sincerely wish to thank you all for being willing to run for representative office. The face that you – each and every one of you – has been prepared to offer yourself forward, to run the rigours of campaigning and to stand the test of democracy, singles you out as people who care, people who feel they have something to offer, and people who would like to ‘make a difference’ and believe they can do so.”
The Members and Deputy Members are:
Members
Deputy Members
This week, the new parliamentarians will be launching their own blog pages on channelmogo, with videos of their campaign statements and invitations to their peers to join debates and ask questions via discussions boards on the website.