Meet Tilly
Here at The National Lottery Community Fund our Youth Voice Wales Team demonstrates our commitment to enabling young people to have a meaningful voice in our communities across the UK. We want to embed youth voice in our approaches and decision making. The Youth Voice Wales Team co-developed Mind Our Future, a £10 million grant programme, with a diverse group of young people from across Wales. Young people wanted the programme to create a mentally healthy and resilient future for young people in a post-COVID-19 society.
We sat down with one of our Youth Voice Wales Team members Tilly to learn about what she brings to the panel and what she has learnt throughout her time on the panel.
Tilly is a student at Llandarcy Academy of Sport. She works with Ospreys in supporting the community through rugby and other sports.
“I hope to use sport to support and raise awareness of work being done in Wales for young people.”
What made you want to join the Youth Voice Wales Team?
“I heard about the opportunity through work and decided to apply. I had an introductory phone call and felt that it was going to be a good opportunity. I had just been a part of a project to support with my own mental health and self-confidence.
The first team call felt like a group facetime as I wasn’t used to online meetings. In the session we were asked what we would do with £10 million. I really enjoyed the session.
My day job is all about helping people have a voice and I knew Youth Voice Wales Panel would be an amazing opportunity to do that.”
What themes (Climate action, equity, mental health etc) are you interested in exploring as part of the Youth Voice Wales Team?
“I’m into sport and wellness I’m also interested in understanding mental health. I’m passionate about helping others help themselves as I understand that you need to help yourself first. I am really passionate about The National Lottery Community Fund’s Mind our Future funding programme and a huge advocate for having resilience as part of the criteria. You can’t always stop challenging things from happening but helping yourself is the first step forward.
Through Mind our Future I learnt qualitive and quantitative research methods and understood the importance of consulting others outside of the Youth Voice Wales Team. We conducted the research through 1 to 1s and interviews with different people and everyone collated their findings together.
As part of the Youth Voice Wales Team, I would also like to look at the transition from college to university, especially for those who are not sure what they want to do with their future as it can be scary and those who do not think university is for them.”
What else have you learnt from being a part of the Youth Voice Wales Team?
“Most of all I have gained the confidence to voice my opinion and lots of self-belief. Being a part of the Youth Voice Wales Team gave me real teamworking skills. I learnt how to run and deliver meetings online as we had never even met in person, but we were still able to work well together and really trusted each other.”