Young voters aged 11-18 took part in the UK’s largest youth consultation to cast their vote on one of 10 issues impacting young lives and their communities. 
 

The results mirror the last ballot in 2022, where health and wellbeing also came top of the list and after national consultations and research this developed into a campaign called ‘food for learning’ calling for free school meals to be available for all school students. 

The 2024 Make Your Mark ballot attracted nearly 100,000 more votes nationally than in 2022, showing participation in democratic processes is growing among young people. Make Your Mark began in 2011 and since then health and wellbeing topics have been highlighted eight times, showing the ongoing concern by young voters and improvements in services still needed.

In Slough we held our Slough Youth Parliament elections alongside the make your mark process and attracted 161 candidates to apply for the roles. Voting took place online, across schools, colleges and youth groups and the successful candidates were announced in a results evening at Lynch Hill Enterprise Academy on 22 March.
 

We thank all the organisations for supporting this process and all the candidates for taking part. 

Our 31 new youth parliament members are:

Rijuta Acharya – Slough Young Inspectors

Aloysius Fernandes – Beat Routes

Aisha Hashmi & Diama Fall – Baylis Court School

Jalon Mensah & Lucia Doana - Beechwood School

Laxmi Sandal & Paula Wiecek – Churchmead School

Aditya Chhatre & Toby Dunford-McLeod – Ditton Park Academy

Anam Aslam & Armish Sardar – Eden Girls School

Katrina Masih & Shammah Mirza – Grove Academy Reps

Hadie Saleeban – Haybrook College

David Essien & Gunveen Kaur – Herschel Grammar

Lakson Bakeerathan & Yihang Chai – Langley Grammar

Emaan Asif – Lynch Hill Enterprise Academy

Dakshayani Rajamarthandan & Elsa Francis – Slough & Eton C of E Business & Enterprise College

Joshua Arul & Tinotenda Magaya – St Bernard’s Catholic Grammar School

Mateusz Skowera – St Joseph’s Catholic School

Felicity-Mai Ford – Westgate School

Junior Jonski & Abbi Mohanaraja – Wexham School

Cameron Jack & Rhiannon Fountain-Meek – Langley College

Rachita Dhoke – SEND Reps.

Sadly, the British Youth Council made a shock announcement on 21 March that they would be closing after 75 years dedicated to championing and strengthening youth voice and involvement in decision making. Due to this any further analysis of the ballot is unlikely to be released. The continuation of the national youth voice programme, funded by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and UK Parliament, is unknown at this time.

Nadine Barrett, Youth Work Team Leader (Youth Voice), Slough Borough Council, said:

“My team and I are committed to providing meaningful mechanisms for our young representatives to have their voice heard and acted upon. The youth voice team will continue our important work to empower young people in Slough to influence social and political change.”