Brum Youth Trends, a company within the Beatfreeks Collective, is addressing young people’s disillusionment in politics. Whilst 40 per cent of Brummies are within the 18-25 bracket, young people are often disillusioned with politics and policy making, feeling as though they have little to no say in how things are run in the city. Bringing famous faces on board such from Andy Street, to Sideman Allday, Brum youth Trends will launch its ‘Who Runs Brum?’ campaign from 16 July in order to shake up the city and give young people a louder collective voice.

A multichannel campaign entitled ‘Who Runs Brum?’ (#WhoRunsBrum) started on 16 July, and will be taking place all over the city. From billboard adverts and social media content, to blogs and think pieces from Beatfreeks, young people, and partners of the cause; the purpose of the campaign will be to start a conversation around how we can engage more young people in today’s leadership, not just tomorrow’s.

A question that doesn’t necessarily have an answer, ‘Who Runs Brum’ is a call to action, a provocation, and an encouragement to put young people front and centre stage through better consultation, better communication of policy, more opportunities and access to leadership development, and better engagement with local politics.

Findings of the 2018 survey will be released at the Brum Youth Trends Summit in October, where influential speakers, made up of people with experience in their fields, along with passionate and driven young people. The results gathered from the survey will be collated into a report which will provide a grounding from which to utilise the findings to achieve change for young people.

Anisa Haghdadi, founder of the Beatfreeks Collective, comments the following:

“This city is going through incredible change every day and often it’s hard to keep up let alone feel like you’re involved in making those decisions. But moments like the Commonwealth Handover Ceremony, the campaign to get Channel4 to the city, and Andy Reeve winning the WMCA Challenge Award for his thinking around housing, show the power that real people have to play in celebrating, challenging and changing this great big lump of land we call Birmingham. 

 #WhoRunsBrum explores the idea that being the youngest city in Europe should mean we’re leading the way in how we empower our young people in the city’s leadership and governance. Young people should be front and centre stage. We’re doing our tiny bit to help put them there.”