Young activists are paving the way for change in Northern Ireland
Cover image courtesy of Pure Mental NI.
As Northern Ireland society continues to evolve and new political, social and environmental issues come to the forefront, young activists are leading the way in campaigning for change from the ground up.
Matthew Taylor, Co-Founder of Pure Mental NI.
If the mental health crisis facing our society had not previously taken priority on Stormont’s legislative agenda, Matthew Taylor made it his mission to promote its urgency. His basis for co-founding the mental health charity ‘Pure Mental’ was in witnessing several friends struggling with the issue alongside receiving minimum support from their school. The first step was aiming to make a difference within his own school. This provided a springboard to a bigger project and gathered media attention, as the student group set up in his school expanded across other schools in Northern Ireland, before a rally was held in January 2020 which brought press coverage from the BBC and ITV to the campaign.
But the strategy behind raising awareness around the mental health crisis in NI required a shift from solely protesting and campaigning about systematic failures to coming up with actionable suggestions as to what steps could be taken to facilitate change. Out of this shift emerged a toolkit for primary and secondary schools which acted as the mental health curriculum the education system was lacking. Due to the success of these efforts, Pure Mental was granted charity status in December 2021 and selected as a finalist for the UK Community Organisation of the year, against 26,000 other nominees.
Matthew notes that what makes Pure Mental NI unique is that it is led solely by young people who are then able to give crucial input into the decision-making which will affect them. Speaking of his very positive personal experience working on Pure Mental NI, he describes his activism as an outlet for taking ownership of himself and as a channel for transforming lived experience into radical change.
Kaitlyn Laverty is another young activist who is paving the way for change and is ensuring that the issue of climate change won’t be allowed to rest on the back burner. Learning about the Northern Ireland activist scene several years ago through the local Extinction Rebellion group and weekly school strikes served to heighten her interest in and passion for the cause. Every Friday she takes part in a Belfast climate strike at Cornmarket as part of Fridays for Future NI and uploads photos to Twitter to provoke concern in our politicians about protecting our local natural landscapes.
Kaitlyn was also present at COP26 in Glasgow wherein she represented Fridays for Future NI which enabled her to meet other activists and participate in many protests, propelling her campaigning outside of the confines of Northern Ireland, whilst promoting the voice of Northern Irish young people on the world stage. This was true also of her campaigning in England, spending time at the HS2 protest camps, aiding them in fighting against ruthless deforestation and habitat destruction taking place at the time.
In her own words, her activism is centred around advocating for the standard of climate policy we deserve in Northern Ireland as we are faced with the threat of unpredictably extreme weather and rising sea levels.
If the dictionary definition of activism defines it as ‘bringing about social and political change’ both of these young people are firmly paving the way for positive local and national change.
Claire Dickson is a Culture Reporter and Politics student at Queen’s University Belfast.