Save Bradford Youth Service

Save Bradford Youth Service, winners of the Campaign of the Year Award 2014

Save Bradford Youth Service, winners of the Campaign of the Year Award 2014

NEW-NUS-Awards-2014-winner

Winner - Campaign of the Year
Bradford College Students’ Union

“Save Bradford Youth Service

In November 2013 Bradford Council announced its proposed budget for 2014-17. This included a proposal to reduce the Youth Service budget by 79%, decimating the service to only statutory levels, in a city that will become the youngest in Europe by 2020.

Between the announcement of the consultation on this and the final decision being made in February, Bradford College led a campaign coalition that successfully saved over £2m of the Youth Service’s budget, reducing the cut to 29%, in line with other services in the authority.

In the course of the campaign we:
• Hosted question and answer sessions with the leader of the council and local MPs engaging over a hundred students at each event
• Engaged over 4,000 people through a social media campaign, including Dynamo, who had been supported by the youth service when growing up in Bradford
• Organised two demonstrations outside council meetings, each with around 1000 people attending, showcasing the talents of young people in Bradford that had been supported by the Youth Service
• Coordinated a mass lobby of councillors at local surgeries with young people and their families telling their stories about how the youth service had helped them
• Printed and delivered 1,000 Christmas cards to the leader of the Council, with the message, ‘all I want for Christmas is my Youth Service because…’
• Coordinated a campaign to complete budget consultation documents, over 4,000 consultations were completed by supporters
• Generated a large amount of media coverage in both print and broadcast media

This campaign engaged thousands of people across the city over the course of 4-5 months and encompassed a multitude of actions. Below we have tried to sum up the course of the campaign, together with the attached media coverage we hope that it provides a picture of what we achieved.

Two days after we found out about the proposed cuts we mobilised 50+ students to attend the council meeting. We arrived with placards, banners and t-shirts. We were met outside City Hall by young people, youth workers and local press. We were initially denied access to the building despite it being a public meeting, and after trying to gain access for 10 minutes, with the meeting having already begun, we were told to wait for a further 5 minutes. After waiting we decided to enter the meeting; getting into the debating chamber and refusing to move. We were allowed 5 minutes to speak in which we stated the case to save the youth service. During this, one of the students told a deeply moving a personal story about the impact of the youth service on him.

Immediately after this the Union President was invited to a Trades Union meeting by youth workers. We spent hours discussing ideas and came to the conclusion that the best thing to do was to let young people lead the fight, with youth workers supporting behind the scenes. That night a group of young people started a Facebook page, “save Bradford youth service”, and by the next morning it had 900 members, reaching over 4000 by the end of the campaign.

We advertised a campaign strategy meeting and the group became called “the friends of Bradford youth service”, composing of youth workers, students, young people, local activists and trade unionists. We decided that we would tour the youth centres across the city doing campaigning sessions helping young people come up with their own ideas.

We agreed to hold a demonstration outside City Hall on the same day as the next council meeting in December. Young people and parents attended every council surgery and organised Q&A sessions with their councillors at youth clubs. We distributed posters and flyers for the demo to 11 schools, youth centres, shops, public transport hubs, mosques, churches… basically anywhere there were young people. Young people across the city held fund raisers, raising over £600 for placard materials, paints, t-shirts and banners.

We got a picture of the magician Dynamo holding a board saying how Bradford youth service helped him gaining the attention of the local press. He continually tweeted and promoted the demo. The University of Bradford Union also supported us in offering support, funding, promotion and engaging hundreds of students in different ways.

1,000 people attended the event,it included speakers and 20 different performances from young people that had been supported by the service. While all this was going on, we filled the City Hall with young people and parents where we addressed the Council. Councillors from all the parties began to break ranks and defend the youth service and describe their experiences. The demo was covered by 6 radio stations, 10 local & regional newspapers and local TV. The demo made a massive statement, shook the council, and helped promote and engage more people. Ultimately it left people believing that we could win.

In the lead up to Christmas produced 1,000 cards saying “all I want for Christmas if my youth service”. People stated inside what the youth service meant to them and we delivered them to the Leader of the Council. We got 563 people to fill in the online public consultation forms and just over 4,000 paper copies.

Over 6 weeks we collected over 300 pictures of people holding up A3 pieces of paper stating why the youth service should be saved and what it had done for them. Over 100 came from students and student union officers from across the UK. We then choose the 91 most powerful messages and in the January full council meeting we put a different picture of someone holding their message on each seat.

In February the Council agreed it’s budget, saving the majority of the service for the future of Bradford. From nothing we had created the biggest campaign the city had seen in years.”

Nominated by Neil MacKenzie, Students’ Union Staff

What the judges said…

“An outstanding campaign, which galvanised urgent anger on a specific and far-reaching issue affecting the very identity of the city. A campaign pursued with the mix of persistence, clear-headedness and dazzling creativity that marks the very best organising actions of the modern student movement” Kathryn Perera, Movement for Change

“In a tough economic climate, particularly for local authorities, the “Save Bradford Youth Service” campaign secured massive reductions to the proposed cuts facing the Youth Service budget. Pulling together an integrated campaign, and numerous stakeholders and organisations, they provided a convincing and emotive case as to why the Council had to reverse their decision. The strategic nature of the campaign, joined with the passion and dedication of those involved, secured a huge win which many national campaigning organisations would have struggled to achieve. The campaign made effective use of the resources at their disposal, and the individuals involved in the campaign clearly had a strong understanding of how they could most effectively achieve the change they desired. Finally, the heavy involvement of the local community, especially on small budgets, was particularly impressive and really highlighted how important and pertinent those involved in the campaign made it to the residents of Bradford.” Tom McCarthy, Shelter

“This was a campaign with clear objectives. It was structured, with a good use of existing resources and was a good creative concept that appealed to the audience. They used a variety of communication methods and the campaign demonstrated a good level of visibility. The objectives were met and they’ve delivered a solid platform for years to come.” Sara Newell, Endsleigh

Some comments from the night…