Tuesday 27 March 2012

Visit to Livity in Brixton with Jenny Jones

I went with our mayoral candidate Jenny Jones this morning, to visit an inspiring project in Brixton called Livity.

We spent an hour or so with half a dozen young people who work there, talking about Jenny's campaign, Green policies and proposals for London. We seemed to cover everything from ideas to tackle youth crime, through to campaigning to restore the EMA, transport, congestion, pollution, sustainable energy and the increasing price of food. This was more a testament to their own formidable knowledge and breadth of questioning than anything else.

The initiative which they are part of is also impressive.

One of their projects is to produce Live magazine, written by and for young people, with a circulation of around 50,000.



Livity itself, is a youth engagement agency which works with young people to co-create campaigns, content and communities. They have experienced cuts in their funding from Lambeth amongst others, but despite this, have come up with a very creative model to try and move themselves towards a more sustainable footing. As part of this they have engaged clients including Google, PlayStation, 02, even the BBC and the Home Office.

There are some paid employees, but also young people who come in from all over London, and received training, equipment, support and opportunities to plan and build for their future.

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