Taken for Granted

When most people think of the youth of today, their opinions are formed about what they see in the media, especially the recklessness that ensued in the August Riots of 2011. Most youth of today think about politics and see it as a complicated, boring, confusing system which they don’t even want to touch let alone get involved.

But being involved in the ‘Taken for Granted’ project may change that way of thinking.

Part-funded by the Big Lottery, the ‘Taken for Granted’ project offered young people aged 14-21 from ethnic minority groups the opportunity to interview the current MPs and Lords with similar backgrounds.

Set up by the Bernie Grant Trust, in honour of the great Bernie Grant MP, who was one of the first black politicians to be elected into the houses of parliament in 1987. The launch of the project back in May saw the participants, including myself, at the Houses of Parliament, joined by some Black and minority ethnic MPs and Lords, including Baroness Benjamin and Sam Gyimah, as well as Sharon Grant, who helped launch the project. The meeting gave us a taste of what we were to expect taking part in the project.

During our time on the Taken for Granted scheme, we had the opportunity of a guided tour of both the House of Lords and Commons and visiting Portcullis House. It was during one of the events which we realised that shockingly, there were only 28 MPs from BME backgrounds. For a multicultural nation, this is nowhere near a true representation of the country, making it difficult for our voices to be heard.

This fact proved to be a motivating factor for me and I'm sure for many other participants in getting the most out of this project, in the hope we could inspire other young people of ethnic minorities and hopefully change this statistic.

We also learnt about the life of Bernie Grant during a visit to the Bernie Grant Archive situated at the Bishopsgate Institute. It illustrated the impact he had made on people and on politics, which gave us a chance to compare how things were during the 1980s to the present day. Amongst the many articles and books on Mr Grant, we also had the privilege of viewing his amazing traditional African clothing worn on his first session in Parliament, which caused controversy, but showed he wasn't going to forget his heritage.

As part of the project, we were given training and tips on how to conduct interviews and training from BBC special correspondent Kurt Barling and Channel 4 journalist Darshna Soni. Following this we decided which MP or Lord we wanted to interview. Our graduation took place at the end of November, which was a chance to reflect on the project and discuss how things went and what we had learnt before being presented with certificates from David Lammy MP.

The project definitely had an impact on the group and made us more politically aware as we have gained insight into the journey of making it in politics and what it means to be involved,. One participant, Khadijah Watkis-Lewis, has even decided to study politics instead of originally intending to do law, due to the encouragement of the Bernie Grant Project. Imagine how many other young people could have a sudden interest in politics, through projects like this, which could change the political landscape forever. For the better.

This project gave us a real eye opener into how politics effects our everyday lives, and how important it is, especially coming from ethnic minority backgrounds ourselves and how much we still need to do in order for there to be fair representation in parliament.

By Yasmin Coonjah