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2010 Manifesto - Diko Blackings

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Diko Blackings - UKYP 2010 Candidate

Contact me: diko.blackings@oxfordshire.gov.uk

 

About me

I am a seventeen year old sixth from student at Cheney School Oxford. My parents are both South Sudanese refuges and fled Sudan when the war erupted for the second time and have been living in the UK ever since. They were allocated housing in Scotland, Glasgow to be precise which was notorious for its placement of refugees, immigrants and asylum seekers. They left Sudan with my older sister Clara who was 5 at the time and is now 23 (studying music, journalism and radio broadcasting). Not too long after this I was born and lived in Scotland up until the age of seven when we moved in 2000 to Oxford when my mum found a job in development and human resource management for an NGO based in Oxford that operated solely in South Sudan. My father is now working as an English teacher in a secondary school in Oxford but his real passion lies with linguistics and has published a dictionary in our ethnic language Ma'Di and is in the process of publishing another dictionary for the Acholi people of South Sudan and Uganda. I consider myself to be a mixture of both cultures. Of course my African heritage plays a huge part in my life it is also equally as important as my British heritage which I consider to be my first nationality. I feel that my heritage is relevant to a lot of Oxfordshire people as many of the Youth within Oxford are of dual heritage or second generation British citizen parents.

Why did I stand for election?

I wanted to stand because I have a genuine interest in enriching the lives of others. This is evident through my current A Level choices which comprise of English literature, sociology, world Development, Philosophy and Ethics as well as Critical Thinking. 

My key issues:

Within my school I am active within almost every humanitarian group possible however I still feel as if I have not made a big enough impact or contribution yet. I still feel that there are plenty of young people within Oxford who are yet to feel liberated and are longing to have their voices heard and I would love to be the vessel to channel their views.

How will I find out what the issues are for young people?

One way of hearing the views of Oxfordshire’s youth is by ensuring that within each school that they have a school council system that is in place. This would comprise of a representative for each Oxfordshire school, preferably two per secondary school (a junior leader for year nine and below and a senior leader for year ten and above) and one per primary. Their jobs would be to collect the concerns of the students within their school or college and feed them back to me their Oxfordshire Youth Rep whether that is through conferences or even just by email updates.

How will I change things?

I will ensure that each school and college had an effective student council that is in existence, or if not I will ensure that the school or college is in process of establishing one. I will be working closely with people within the school or college who are interested in the idea of developing a student council. I will also make myself widely available such as having a Youth Rep Facebook page where people can leave their thoughts to which I will actively respond.

Finally...

 I am fully committed to doing the best that I can for the Youth of Oxfordshire. I have done so much already within my own school that I can only hope to expand it further into the county. I truly believe that I can be an example of the power of hard work, determination and dedication especially for female youths, youths of ethnicity or those who come from a poor socio-economic background, as I am a product of all three of those factors.

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