Oasis Academy student makes keynote speech at ‘4Children’ National Conference in London

This week saw Liam Pearce, a Year 13 student from Oasis Academy Immingham, travel to London to make a keynote speech at the 4Children National Conference. Liam was joined at Wednesday’s conference by, amongst others, Dawn Butler MP, Parliamentary Secretary, and James Cathcart, Chief Executive of the British Youth Council.

As a campaign member with ‘Respect?’, Liam was invited to the ceremony to deliver a speech focusing on the portrayal of young people in society, most notably, in the media. The theme of the conference was ‘Perceptions of Young People: Turning the negative to positive’, and Liam’s speech reflected on the perceived heavy emphasis within the media of depicting young people as antisocial members of society.

The ‘Respect?’ campaign is led by six, 16 to 24 year-olds who together form the Respect Young People’s Advisory Group (RYPAG), supported by YouthNet and British Youth Council (BYC). Their aim is to improve the representation of young people in the media, Government and UK society as a whole, by encouraging young people to speak up, and society to listen.

Within his address, Liam outlined the ‘Respect?’ campaign: “Our strategy within the ‘Respect?’ campaign is to tell young people that they don’t have to accept the way newspapers write about them or people speak about them.  Young people have a voice and can stand up for themselves.”

Liam has been involved in the campaign since its launch in November 2008, which was backed by veteran BBC broadcaster Martyn Lewis. Martyn is the founder of YouthNet, and helped launch the ‘Respect?’ campaign on the heels of research showing that 98% of young people felt the media “always, often or sometimes represents them as anti-social.”

In July 2009 Liam received a Positive Image Award for his work in this field, winning the ‘Best involvement by a young person in promoting positive media portrayal’ category.

Tony Rawdin, Principal of Oasis Academy Immingham, said, “We are delighted for Liam, and so pleased that he was able to attend the conference. Being invited to deliver a keynote speech is a great honour and one which Liam rose to fantastically. All of our students and local young people can look to Liam as a positive example of someone who sees a problem in our society and gets involved to make a difference.”