“Our Year” and UNICEF Child-Friendly City Event

Over 30 schools and youth organisations from the Manchester region attended an event at the Manchester Central Convention Centre to celebrate the achievements of ‘2022 Our Year’ for Manchester’s young people. It was also to launch Manchester’s bid to be internationally recognised as a UNICEF Child Friendly City (they are currently a candidate city). The purpose of this is to support children and young people in their endeavours to grow and learn, and to expand their horizons again post-Covid. The ambition is that the city will offer every child and young person a safe, happy, healthy life and the opportunity to achieve their full potential.

Councillor Garry Bridges, Executive Member for Early Years, Children and Young People, Manchester City Council, has said: “Our goal is to make Manchester the very best place in the world for children and young people to grow up in and so we’re really pleased to have also been accepted by UNICEF UK onto their international Child Friendly Cities programme.”

Kloodle was there with Manchester Council’s “Skills For Life” team to promote the SFL programme and attract as many schools as possible onto the skills platform. The objective of the programme is to raise the profile and self-awareness of skills in young people and give them a framework through which they can develop them; at the same time growing as a person.

The skills’ development builds not only employability, but also, as the SFL name suggests, they are transferable into everything that life may throw at you, so that people can deal with adversity and lead happy, healthy, successful lives.

The Skills For Life team at Manchester Council are in the process of energising local schools to sign up to Kloodle and youth organisations to be Skills For Life providers. Through the digital platform these organisations can interact with young people to set challengesencourage participation and capture their journey.

The following participants attended:

The event was a real success, joanne Aungier and the team put on a great event and even enjoyed a range of celebs dropping in for the day to support the young people of Manchester!