Hi Guys!
We are back after a very busy but very productive day at the Liberal Democrat conference in Birmingham! We headed up in the morning, and after a few unplanned trips around the canals, arrived in the right place and met up with our awesome mentor Ali Goldsworthy!
Then we got on with interviewing MPs! First up was Duncan Hames, the MP for Chippenham, where Hope's dad lives and where she recently went on the campaign trail. Duncan who has done work with the Kidney Foundation and had known someone who died whilst waiting for a kidney. It was very moving and interesting to hear about his personal experience. We then tested his knowledge with a game with Brian, but you'll have to wait for the video to find out how he did!
We then met Dr Evan Harris, who is a Lib Dem MP with a lot of experience of organ donation campaigning, he told us he would support an Opt Out system for organ donation but in the meantime, more could be done to educate people. Since Evan is a doctor and knows plenty about organ donation, we thought we'd test him with Operation instead!
Finally we met Don Foster, the MP for Bath, where I am studying at University. Don admitted he didn't know much about organ donation but was very interested to find out more and asked us a lot of questions about it. He is however on the register and showed us his old donor cards. We also introduced him to good old Brian and he seemed to enjoy the game!
We followed that by attending a youth panel debate, which was really interesting. The other young people in the audience gave the Lib Dems quite a hard time with probing questions about raising tuition fees, cancelling EMA and other decisions this year that have made them feel the Lib Dems have let them down.
At one point there was a vote on 'Do you think the Lib Dems care about young people?' And almost everyone in the audience voted 1 and 2 out of five, which translated as 'No they don't'. It said a lot for how much young people have lost faith in the Lib Dems.
We got to ask a question and asked about a really exciting idea that Duncan Hames gave us that could potentially raise the number of donors. Simon Hughes backed it, as did the other members of the panel and all the audience voted in favour of it! What a result!
You will have to look out for an upcoming video of the conference and blog to find out what this new idea is and how you can help, but we are very excited about it!
Finally we headed home, very tired but looking forward to acting on all the great things that came out of the day.
Don't forget to watch T4 this Sunday at 8.45am to see our Battlefront episode! We loved Ready For Work's episode and can't wait to see ours!
Lastly, our brilliant advocate Christy Millar is raising awareness about life on the waiting list for a kidney by encouraging people to join in with an online chat with her while she is on dialysis. Christy spends a total of 12 hours a week on dialysis, and wants to show what that can be like. Watch the video to find out more and see how you can join in.
