World’s End Youth Accountability Assembly: From Listening to Action

This blog follows on from our Communities Director Kate Welsh’s piece, ‘Collective Action in Action: Young People Leading Change’ and shares the next chapter in our journey.

Having recently stepped into my role as Community Engagement Coordinator in the Communities team here at AllChild, I’ve been lucky to already have so many opportunities to meet and work alongside the young people, Link Workers, families, and community partners who are driving forward our collective action work: to support young people to make change on issues they care about and foster well-connected communities that are responsive to youth voice.  

That drive and passion for uplifting youth voice has never been more powerfully evident than on 10th July, when 19 young Changemakers from three schools in south Kensington and Chelsea took to the stage at Ashburnham Community Primary School for the World’s End Youth Accountability Assembly, to lead a dialogue with key local organisations on youth provision in the area. For many of the adults in the room, myself included, it was a reminder of just how much is possible when young people are given the tools and platform to lead.

How we got here

This event marked the culmination of a year of youth-led collective action. Over the past year, AllChild trained the Changemakers in community organising and how to lead a listening campaign. Through this, the group held one-on-one conversations with over 200 young people across the estate to better understand the issues that mattered most to them. Utilising our connections via our previous work in the area, our communities team led 40 1:1 meetings with the council, local organisations and early help leads to see if these priorities are felt across the whole community.  

What they heard was consistent: many young people shared that the local offer of youth activities didn’t always reflect their interests or needs.

At their first public event on 10th March, the Changemakers presented the findings from their listening campaign and shared a set of clear asks with local organisations. In response, AllChild convened the World’s End Youth Activities Network (WEYAN), a working group of local partners committed to actioning youth voice and supporting young people to lead change.

The Day Itself

In front of their peers, families, and community leaders, the Changemakers shared their asks with representatives from the WEYAN who directly outlined clear and practical commitments in response to what young people had called for.

-Young K&C committed to improving access to local opportunities by creating and sharing a full summer and academic year activity timetable with young people and families.

-Fit For Life pledged to grow youth leadership at Chelsea Youth Club, develop clearer volunteering pathways, and begin laying the groundwork for a regular summer residential and termly local trips.

-Flashpoint announced plans to launch a weekly creative arts and Henna club, open a new gaming room for local young people, and explore improvements to their playground facilities and equipment.

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These commitments are just the beginning, but they mark a shift towards greater transparency, collaboration, and accountability between young people and the organisations that serve them.

By the end of the assembly, the atmosphere in the room was powerful. Young people described feeling passionate, powerful, satisfied, and authoritative. From the adults present - parents, AllChild staff and community partners - the words were hopeful, inspired, and motivated.

In Their Words

In their own words, the Changemakers shared what this work means to them:

"Listening helps us understand what our community cares about so we can all work together to take action on an issue."

"This work is not just about the asks we mentioned today, this is a long-term project, and ultimately, we want to see more investment in this area and the south of the borough."

"We think it’s important that young people get their voices heard in this area so that we bring communities together."

More people, more power!

There’s power in one voice - but even more in a room full of them. This is what it looks like when young people take action, and this is only the beginning.

Thank you to Citizens UK for their continued support of this work; to the Link Workers, whose expertise and relationships with young people make our collective action possible; to the members of WEYAN for their time and commitment to youth voice; and to everyone who attended or supported the World’s End Youth Accountability Assembly.

Written by Nathanial Laydon (Community Engagement Coordinator)