More Than Just Good Sandwiches: Our Youth Engagement Day
- Admin
- 4 days ago
- 3 min read
Blog by Tanisha Zaman, Research Officer for Partnership for Young London
When you hear Youth Engagement Day, you might imagine a room full of young people, a few presentations, and some pretty decent sandwiches at lunch. And while the sandwiches were genuinely excellent (very important for morale), the day turned out to be much more than that.
Last week we hosted a Youth Engagement Day at Lift Youth Hub, bringing together young people, peer researchers and partners to reflect on projects, share ideas and help us understand the real impact of youth-led work.
For us, youth engagement isn’t just about bringing young people into a room. It’s about listening carefully, learning from their experiences, and improving the way we work.
Starting the day (and warming up the room)
We kicked things off with an icebreaker followed by a public speaking activity where everyone introduced themselves, shared the project they were part of and spoke about one key thing they are currently working on.
Everyone jumped straight in. It was a great reminder of how much young people are already doing - from research and advocacy to community organising and peer-led initiatives.
Learning from each other
One of the highlights of the day was an interactive session led by Amplify Peer Researchers, who ran activities exploring how young people can reflect on and evaluate their own projects.
Evaluation can sometimes feel intimidating, like it’s only about criticism. But this session helped destigmatise evaluation, showing it can also be positive - recognising successes, learning from challenges, and helping projects reach their goals more effectively.
We were also joined by partners from Politics in Action, who travelled from Northern Ireland to take part in the day. Having partners from another part of the UK in the room created some really interesting conversations and reminded us how much young people can learn by sharing ideas across regions and projects.
Peer researcher Stephanie-Nicole reflected:
“I have learnt about the evaluation methods from Politics in Action. Mainly evaluating oneself in projects and not only just negatively but positively. Thinking about how to get to your end goal as efficiently as possible.”
When we asked partners about their favourite moments from the day, Matt from Politics in Action summed it up perfectly:
“Meeting new people from really cool projects.”
And that really captured the spirit of the day.
Talking about the future of work
In the afternoon, the focus shifted towards employment and skills. Young people took part in focus groups run with Savanta for the Greater London Authority Youth Strategy Brief.
Young people shared honest reflections about the barriers they face when entering the workforce today and how those challenges are evolving.
One topic that came up again and again was the growing role of AI and technology in shaping the future of work. Many young people spoke about the uncertainty they feel about how AI might change job.
These conversations are exactly why youth engagement is so important. If policies and strategies are going to support young people effectively, they need to reflect the realities young people are experiencing right now.
Young people capturing the day
Together young people also co-created an Instagram post sharing their highlights from the day!
You can see the post here:
One of my favourite moments was seeing young people from different projects connect, share ideas and learn from each other. When that happens, collaboration feels natural - and that’s where real partnerships begin.
Days like this matter because youth engagement shouldn’t be a tick-box exercise. It’s about listening to young people, learning from their experiences, and improving how we support youth-led work - it’s much more than a room, a lunch break and a few sandwiches.
Comments