Raising Political Awareness in Schools

12.00.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Wed 17th Jun 2009

On 16 June Merlene addressed students at Fulham Cross Girls' School about equalities issues and encouraged more young women to become involved in politics. Currently less than 20 percent of the MPs in Parliament are women, and where it comes to ethnic minority women, the figures are even more shocking, namely, only 2 MPs or 0.3%!

The talk at Assembly was arranged by the school as part of their Political Awareness project to encourage and inspire students to learn more about the political process in the UK.

"I was impressed by the level of engagement and enthusiasm shown by the young ladies and was delighted to be able to help them understand the important role politics play in our lives, be it the education that they receive, the homes we live in or the quality of the air we breathe" said Merlene.

A mock election was held the following week at the school and hopefully both the staff as well as the students have had a foretaste of the real thing to come and will be equally enthusiastic during the general and local elections next year.

Merlene would be pleased to speak at other school assemblies and can be contacted at campaign@merlene.org.uk