Blog by Sayuri
Hello, my name is Sayuri, I’m 16 years old and I’m currently in my first year of college. I’m a peer researcher on the Young Residents in Partnership project and my housing association is Clarion, living in Coulsdon (South London). Today I wanted to use my blog as an opportunity to tell you a little bit of what it was like for me as a young peer researcher to participate in the online launch of our report ‘Shaping Housing Futures’.
But firstly, I’m going to introduce my fellow peer researchers as without them this wouldn’t have been possible. We have Theresa and Kara, who were apart of the previous peer research team and their housing associations are Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing (MTVH) and Hyde, we also have Ohemaa who is from Clarion, like me, and Beau and Ethan who are from MTVH and Hyde as well. All of us peer researchers worked together and helped support each other in the making and preparation of this launch alongside with the support of the steering group and Partnership for Young London (PYL).
Something that I personally really enjoyed during this process was the amount of freedom we had: there wasn’t a single moment that we the peer researchers weren’t involved in the different preparation steps when working on this project. Holding these different events has really helped to show me exactly what we’re working towards and even though we’re young, the adults around us ensured our voices were heard and that we were in the room for key decision-making moments. Even when we had our Saturday training day, we all sat together, and everything was in our hands and we were able to have full control over the event and ensure that the presentation of the launch came from us young people. Ethan especially helped with this as he went over the slides and gave them a more artistic touch to really draw everyone in.
Something that really stuck with me from our online launch was my experience of the breakout rooms and the Q and A. In my breakout room I was discussing the recommendation on “How to create an age specific communication strategy” with the support of Judie from Clarion and Rianne from PYL. Something that really stood out to me was the enthusiasm and genuine interest everyone had in getting young people involved and heard. They asked me many good questions about my experience, and we all took in the different advice and opinions that we all had to share. It was nice for me as a young person to know that the people who joined my breakout room, who are adults within the housing sector, had a genuine interest in involving young people.
During my breakout room we discussed what the barriers for young people were - if there were any barriers - and if so, how we could combat these. We also discussed different ways to get young people interested and involved and how we could put that into practice. However, it wasn’t just the breakout room that stood out to me: also, the Q and A in which all peer researchers were answering the questions included many well thought out and insightful questions. One that stood out for me was “If you were the CEO for a day, what changes would you like to make?” which Beau responded beautifully with by suggesting youth-focused housing events, introducing support networks that help with youth-related housing issues, including financial education and education on housing rights.
Overall, for my first time experiencing an online launch I would say that it was a great experience. I was nervous in some moments, for example instead of me saying I’m from south London I simply said “I’m from the south” or even when my computer happened to cut out mid launch when I was about to present my part. Even so, I had my fellow peer researchers by my side to help me along the way and also the support and help of the steering group and PYL. Leading this launch allowed me to get more insight and perspectives from people working within housing and I would definitely love to do this again.
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