WE ARE ZCTU!

During our trip to Southern Africa, organised by ACTSA, we met youth leaders from Zimbabwe. At first sight, it was like being at a students conference talking about free education and student governance - wanting to be the vanguard of society, never again wanting to be in the same situation as now.

But when this was overshadowed by the arrests and torture that young activists face on an almost daily basis, I felt humbled by seeing their world through their eyes and gaining a much deeper insight into the issues surrounding Zimbabwe, such as when one comrade explained that after its independence, Zimbabwe failed to put any checks and balances on the power over its people.

It may look like we're playing on different football fields in the struggle for freedom, democracy and equality, but what links us all together is that wherever we are, history is repeated, from the oppression in South Africa in the apartheid years to that of Zimbabwe and Swaziland today. So in our 24/7 lifestyle, it may seem like a struggle to think for a moment, let alone take action in solidarity with our friends in this region - but that struggle is nothing compared to the struggle that they endure on a daily basis.

If you would like to find out more about out European and International activities click here, fill in our survey to join the network or contact compassyouth7@gmail.com.

COMPASS IS GOING TO THE BEACH, COME AND JOIN US IN BRIGHTON!

After a successful joint event held in London in March, we have announced a series of debates about the future of the Left in other cities including Brighton this Saturday 19 July

11-12.30 @ Brightelm Centre, North Road, Brighton (see map)

Speakers include:

• Baroness Helena Kennedy QC
• Neal Lawson, Chair, Compass
• Margaret Hodge MP
• Chris Leslie
• Polly Toynbee, The Guardian (chair)
• With introductory remarks by Nancy Platts, Labour PPC for Brighton Pavillion. Kindly supported by Unite

Check the Facebook event. All Compass events, unless stated, are free to attend and open to anyone, simply register by sending an email.

If you would like to find out more about out our other regional activities fill in our survey or contact compassyouth7@gmail.com.

TAKE A CAMERA, RECORD YOUR STORY, TELL THE WORLD

What are you doing this summer…?

Would you like to make a T.V show about you and your mates?

How do you and your friends support each other in dealing with your relationships?

You tell your own stories.

Take a camera. Record your story. Tell the world.

We need young people to talk about their life experiences and how they manage those tricky relationship issues.

We are working with Channel 4 to work on a TV programme called Life Proof which they want to film over the summer holidays to go on air in the autumn. We are looking for specific groups of young people and one of these is 16-19 year olds interested in politics and so I thought of you. Compass Youth is working to develop this anyway with other organisations, but this could be a good stepping stone for you to get more involved in politics.

Please see the brief outline and if you were interested, you would have the opportunity of being filmed yourself with in return recruiting other 16-19 year olds interested in politics for this project. As this is being filmed shortly, we would need to know if you wanted to do this and if other young people you knew could do this too.

CONTACT US ON 07790202469 or compassyouth7@gmail.com

If you would like to find out more about out Video & Film activities click here or Social Media click here, fill in our survey to join the network or contact compassyouth7@gmail.com.

Compass Youth Policy & Campaign Roundtable

With Jon Cruddas MP

Monday 21st July @ 8.15pm
Zamzama, Drummond Street, London NW1 2PB

Compass is setting the agenda on Labour and the wider Left's future: we believe a fairer more equal society is possible - come and help debate ideas and practical plans with Jon Cruddas MP.

Compass Youth follows on from the highly successful Compass Conference and International Youth Plenary with the first in a series of policy and campaigns rountable discussions with leading democratic socialist MP's and thinkers.

With Compass Youth pusing ahead with plans in the UK and abroad its an exciting time to get involved. Compass Youth have recently sent a delegate to South Africa to meet Young Trades Unionists and will be attending the ECOSY - European Young Socialist Movement Summer University to lead debates and provide campaign training to delegates. Exciting on-campus plans will be unveiled shortly along with our nationwide road show as will some ongoing Compass Youth TV projects and music events.

Apologies for the very late notification of this email - many Compass Youth members have been told informally previously but with key Organising Committee members taking a summer break something slipped. If you can't make it this time never fear, we'll be doing it all again soon enough with another exciting guest speaker.

Please RSVP to youthchair@compassonline.org.uk

We look forward to seeing you on Monday, details of the restaurant are here and details of directions are here. Nearest Tube Warren Street, Euston sqaure or Euston.

For more information about Compass Youth or to find out about getting involved please email: youthchair@compassonline.org.uk or call +44 7971 819 830

Birth of Ska

Happy Birthday Mandela!

As Nelson Mandela’s 90th birthday this Friday 18th July approaches, we would like to remind you of a number of ways in which you can show your support and get involved in this special day.

For those of you who are in London, we would like to invite you to give just an hour of your time for Nelson Mandela and join ACTSA at Parliament Square, to make your pledge to the "greatest and most courageous leader of our generation". The celebration will involve creating a giant South African flag, consisting of your Mandela at 90 greetings and pledges for development and in southern Africa – the event is going to be marked prestigiously throughout the country, so would be great if you could make it.

We will be convening with ACTSA at Parliament Square, London at exactly 12.30pm, this Friday, 18th July and the event will be finished by 1.30pm.

If you can join it is really important that you let us know, so please email campaigns@actsa.org

If you haven’t managed to do so yet, there’s still time to sign Mr. Mandela’s birthday card and pledge for democracy, justice and rights for southern Africa here.

Please do encourage your friends and family to sign the card too.

In addition to the above event, at 1pm on Friday 18th July we want people to stop what they are doing and spare a few moments to mark Nelson Mandela's 90th birthday. We want you, and your friends, family and colleagues to take a photo of people holding up their own personal birthday pledges for justice, rights and development for southern Africa. You can email your pictures to campaigns@actsa.org. For more information go here.

For larger groups of at least 100 people, you could take part in our giant South African flag of pledges activity, joining those in Parliament Square . Download the activity pack and the accompanying excel sheet to create labels for your participants here.

ACTSA wants to celebrate Mandela the man, the movement that he represents and some of the other great leaders that led the fight against apartheid in South Africa and really hope that you will support us in our goal. Thanks so much for your time!

If you want to find out more about our trip to South Africa, we will be running a diary, starting with the first few days here.

If you would like to find out more about out European and International activities click here, fill in our survey to join the network or contact compassyouth7@gmail.com.

It's your show!

We have just launched our personalised homepage for Compass Youth and guess what we would like you to contribute to it.

Tell us which online sites you would like us to add, in fact we want to hear from you if you've got a blog. All you need to do is send us the link and why you think we should add it and if we like your blog, we'll add it! If you think the homepage should be radically changed, if you have any modules you want us to add, we'd like to know too.

Why did we create this in the first place?

The excellent Blog Nation event that Sunny organised, the suggestion that Unity made, the pledge that Robert made, the provocations that Ali and Lee made:

• "to get more of an unfiltered exchange of news going, simply so more people are aware of developing issues and in a position to comment on them...people are naturally inclined, in following their interests, to pick up on stories that the rest of us might well miss...generally indulging in a little shameless, and shame-free, self promotion, simply because good writing and strong issue will always find an audience...give the rest of us the material to link to and debate." (Unity)
• "introduce one relative, friend or colleague to blogging each month. This need not mean forcing them to set up their own blog. Instead, just a gentle explanation of the power of RSS" (Robert)
• "Dare I suggest that a future session should instead be asking “Where are all the young bloggers?”. The “MySpace Generation” should surely be like fish in water with political blogging - not able to vote, so engaging in politics online. Why, then, are there so few young bloggers? Or, if they exist, why are they ignored?" (Ali)
• "All the cool young bloggers exist outside of London obviously" (Lee)

I would suggest a fantastic tool - the streets - can we mix up the face to face and the online? here's a suggestion.

See here for how this works!



Sunny argues "I’m sure there can be more tools to similarly take blogs forward". We've experimented with some of these, what others are out there?

• bringing together progressive videos through an open source tv channel
  
• opening up the manifesto process with MySociety, STLP and Comment on This
• developing our presence on facebook

I





Apologies to Iain and Guido for not adding their blogs, but if you can convince us why we should add them, you never know