On the 1st and 2nd November I went to the London Cyberspace Conference as part of the youth forum with 24 other young people. We debated about various topics such as Internet safety, cybercrime and cyber bullying. It was really fun with the youth forum as we played games and did a range of different activities. For example, in my group we had to design what we thought televisions would be like in the future and also we made a video about our views on the Internet. In the video we covered positives and negatives. One of the negative points was cyber bullying but in response to this I spoke about how the Internet can be a huge source of support for many people. I brought in my campaign here as forums can be used to talk about mental health anonymously on the Internet so people feel they can speak more openly and ask what they see as embarrassing questions without being identified and stigmatised. Also, I thought about how peer mentoring on the Internet could be a great platform for people who want to discuss perhaps their own mental health issues or others with someone who understands but they do not have to see them in person.
The youth forum also intergrated with the adult delegates. I saw a few speeches by William Hague, including a conclusion to the conference. Afterwards, the whole youth forum stood in a group and William Hague came up to us and we spoke to him for a bit about how the youth will be integrated more in the future conferences. We were surrounded by cameras and the press and we all felt famous! There was also a speech by David Cameron, we saw Tim Loughton the children's minister who I met at the Tory Conference, Hilary Clinton was meant to come but had to go to the USA last minute, the vice president of the USA was on skype to the conference and we also skyped with someone from New Zealand!
I got to do lots of exciting things, for example I was filmed with 4 other young people for BBC Arabic! We also had a stand with Childline where all the youth forum competed with a bubble wrap game and I had the second fastest time :) During lunch on the first day, I filmed interviews with various adult delegates which was a new experience for me and I really enjoyed using a good camera but it did really hurt my arms! Also, the lunch was a buffet and the plates had a clip on thing to hold your glass but I was too scared to put it in there as I had no faith in it staying attached to the plate! In the evening we had the choice to eat there again with the adults or go out for pizza... It was a very easy decision for me!
We were lucky enough to have Luc Delany who works at Facebook to talk to us. I spoke to him afterwards and he told me about a website with various forums for young people and he said there were mental health related topics too so I am waiting to get in touch to find out more about the website as it sounds really good!
The conference was really fun and I want to say a massive thank you to the organisers and everyone who looked after the youth forum at the NSPCC as they were amazing! It was great to meet all the other young people too as they came from such a range of places and organisations and I loved finding out about them and it is incredible to see all the amazing work young people are doing!
Thanks to i.co.uk for featuring me in their article about the Cyberspace Conference.. Just scroll down and you'll see it!
At the end of the day I tweeted William Hague and he replied, RT'd and followed me!
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