Young People's Action Group (YPAG)

The YPAG play a crucial role in scrutinising the work of the VRU and its partners to ensure investments and policies are delivered with maximum impact for young people and communities. 

The young people have been recognised for their work by Skills Builder who have awarded an Impact Level 4. Based on the work Skills Builders have been doing around bringing a focus on essential skills for the young people to consider their application in a range of contexts, together with explicit opportunities for reflection and tracking progress, this has been awarded an Impact Level 4. 

Alongside this, the YPAG has: 

• Led in the commissioning design of a £4 million tender for Children and Young People Online Harm fund, focused on providing support to frontline practitioners and trusted to be better equipped to support young people online whilst also providing mentoring and training to young Londoners to be work ready.   

• Organised a Youth Takeover Day event at City Hall for over 200 young Londoners. The event brought together young Londoners, industry leaders, employers, and partners for an afternoon of networking, opportunities, and hearing young people’s voices.  

• Designed and facilitated workshops for chief executives and senior leaders across the UK within the topic area of Tackling Childhood Exploitation  

• Supported a range of VRU partners by co-designing programmes and materials including Missing People’s ‘Is This Ok?’ campaign and the Advance mentoring programme. 

• Led in the shortlisting of over 460 applications for the Young People's Action Group recruitment campaign.  

• Co-designed and led on youth voice at the VRU’s first Education Summit.  

• Designed and led training to other young Londoners focused on improving their online health in partnership with Social Switch/Catch 22.  

• Provided youth voice to several boards across the VRU and the GLA including the Trusted Adult Board and the Sports Fund.

We recruited 13 young people to the YPAG this year. They are joined by nine other members from last year’s cohort, who move to the second year of the programme to further their work and support the new group. 

• Princess Kunadu, 17, Barking and Dagenham
• Yasmin Blake, 17, Newham
• Mateusz Jablonowski, 17, Barking and Dagenham
• Kulsum Miyanjee, 18, Redbridge
• Olivia Opara, 20, Haringey
• Safa Mehmood, 19, Redbridge
• Angel Gillam, 18, Islington
• J Grange, 21, Waltham Forest
• Jhemar Jonas, 21, Lambeth
• Clara Akingbade, 18, Barnet
• Zubin Burley, 16, Barking and Dagenham
• Razanne Bardou, 17, Haringey
• Rihana Zaman, 16, Enfield

Cohort 3, who remain as second year members of the YPAG:

• Kai Bibi, 19, from Havering
• Jonas Andrew-Phillip, 22, from Lewisham
• Gideon Baker, 17, from Barnet
• Mya-Chloé Davis, 18, from Greenwich
• Mya Douglas, 19, from Croydon
• Reannah Britto, 21, from Lewisham
• Shannon Cockle, 20, Bexley
• Zara Hossain, 18, from Barking and Dagenham
• Miriam Krygier, 17, from Barnet