@photogramel started a short twitter convo with this tweet:
You can read the replies to get a bit more background, but the gist of it is: PPAU could host a forum where we listen to young Muslims about their lives and try to form policy/platform/change around that.
Who would like to be involved (roles include organiser, speaker, listener, promoter, misc, other)?
Later we can talk about this becoming a design-pattern for PPAU if it goes well.
I think it’s an interesting proposal. Without diluting it, I do wonder if it could go beyond the Muslim community and look at all disenfranchised or disengaged youth, as I’m sure there are likely to be similar cases regardless of religious or cultural belief.
Nevertheless, hosting a sane forum in which young Muslims are given an opportunity to speak would definitely be a positive thing to do. I’m reminded of the less than adequate engagement with the Muslim community, and the enormous signs of disrespect being shown by the current Government. I’m sure we could do better, and it’s worth a go.
Sadly I don’t think I would have the time to get enormously involved, but can obviously help on the promotional side of things with press releases and social media. Do you envisage it being a public forum?
I think it’s The Right Time to do something specifically with Muslim youth. The last line in my post was to acknowledge that there are plenty of other voices that go underrepresented and setting up platforms for those voices to be amplified would be ideal. I suspect that having it focused and specific would prompt the panel/speakers to give focused and specific critiques which, as a small party, we’d be better able to process. Running on the steam of dedicated volunteers makes implementing responses to a discussion forum difficult as it is.
That runs into your last question about it as a public forum. Initially, the idea bouncing around in my head was for the policy working groups and NC to be the target audience with the wider membership invited to join or watch a stream/recording. I’m not sure if this kind of session would lead to any direct policy outcomes though so I think I might be a little off the mark on that idea.
If it were arranged as a public forum, the outcomes could be as simple as having people listening to Muslim youth. With PR and social media signal boosting it might get their messages out there. Running it this way would require significant work in getting the right audience engaged; i.e. the people who could make a difference in their lives. Hosting such a thing feels rather daunting for me given my lack of experience.
I think something low key and targeted at PPAU volunteers makes sense. I am open to it going in any direction that it gets pulled so long as it’s still addressing the problem highlighted in Mel’s tweet.
I definitely thought a public forum would be the most effective platform. Do you think a forum in a physical location would be the ideal way this could take place or were you leaning more toward an online presence?
I had envisaged it happening in a physical location. Either way has its benefits and drawbacks. One is selective by ability to travel, the other is selective by access to technology and an ability to troubleshoot tech problems (depending on the platform; I guess a twitter forum would be different).