What is SHYC?
Surrey Heath Youth Council (SHYC) is a local youth group set up and previously supported by Eikon, that works to improve the lives of young people in the area and represent their voices on a variety of social issues.
We work on a range of different local projects throughout the year based on positively impacting young people, sometimes working with different local councilors to ensure youth voice is heard. We vote different members in to run different aspects of the group, such as a group Chair and an email manager.
“I joined SHYC because I wanted to help make a change in my community. I also wanted something to put on applications for things.”
What do you get out of SHYC?
We recently completed a survey to measure the impact of SHYC on our members. We found out that…
- Overall the group felt 75% more empowered to make a difference to our community since joining SHYC
- 100% of us felt that SHYC has helped us make new friends
- 78% of us felt SHYC has given us the opportunity to connect to a community of young people
- 67% of us felt SHYC provided us with a safe space to talk outside of school
- 67% of us felt SHYC supported us to develop our transferable skills for the future
What do you enjoy most about SHYC?
“It’s fun and we achieve meaningful change that benefits young people”
“socialising and making friends”
“helping the community”
“It’s great and I’ve been able to talk to people of all ages without getting worried”
“I like how we are mostly independent”
What are some of the projects SHYC work on?
Our most recent project has been a cycling project in which we conducted a survey with over 300 responses and worked with local councilor Paul Deach.
We are also doing a mental health project, which involves making a leaflet about social media posts spreading information about mental health for young people including:
- mental health in general
- ideas to look after your mental health, and
- the mental health experiences of certain groups.
One of our biggest projects was the TEDxYouth@SurreyHeath event we hosted in July 2021 at Camberley Theater. The event consisted of five speakers talking about a range of topics like unconscious bias as well as living independently and mental health. The speakers were from a range of organisations including Surrey Pride, Children’s Cap and Fearless Outreach. We had a live audience and a YouTube stream with over 200 views to date. Through the event we inspired local young people, recruited new members and got good publicity for the group! You can watch the event here.
To find out more about SHYC, go to our website and follow our social media pages:
Written by Surrey Heath Youth Council
