It was my pleasure to attend the Scouts #AMillionHands launch in The Speaker’s State Rooms.
Over the last one hundred years, the issues the Scouts have tackled have evolved and changed, but young people’s drive to make a positive impact remains constant.
Our young people are the optimists, the change-makers and the make-it-happen-ers. Up and down the country, half a million Scouts stand to make a real change in their communities. The Scouts are empowering them to make a change on the themes in society which mean the most to them.
Through the A Million Hands programme, they will be working with charity partners to make a difference on these themes:
Protecting the environment, supported by WWF
Ending homelessness, supported by Crisis and Simon Community NI
Supporting refugees and displaced children, supported by Save the Children
Better mental health for all, supported by Mind, SAMH and Inspire
Understanding disability, supported by the National Autistic Society
Fostering kindness in every community, supported by the British Red Cross
By working together on A Million Hands, we can all help bring people together, connect communities and live out our promise to leave the world a little better than we found it.
One million people will have dementia within the next two years and that could double within a generation, according to a Tyneside MP. North Tyneside MP, Mary Glindon, who recently joined over 100 MPs in backing the Alzheimer’s Society dementia care campaign, said: “we heard powerful testimony that the current care system is unfair, unsustainable and in urgent need of reform.