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Description

Visit your local authority to explore how your community’s governed. How could you work together to make the world a better place?

I do not take any credit for this activity. Found on Scouts.org.uk
https://www.scouts.org.uk/activities/community-begins-at-home/

Resources

A4 paper
Coloured pens or pencils

Instructions

Before you begin
- Local authorities vary across the UK – the sort of local government you have, and what they cover, will depend on where you live. You can find out more about the kinds of local government (and how they’re structured) on the Institute for Government’s website.
- Check out your local authority’s website to see what they do – they may cover all sorts of things including housing, education, waste collection, libraries, and transport. It’s useful to have a basic understanding (and some examples) before you start chatting to young people.

Question time
- Everyone should look at the topics their local authority covers. They should also look at the UN Sustainable Development Goals. How does their local authority try to meet these goals? If it’s not trying at the moment, what could it do?
Things such as homelessness (goal 1), education (goal 4), cutting carbon emissions (goal 13) and creating sustainable communities (goal 11) all rely on the actions of local authorities (as well as people living in the community).
- Everyone should split into teams of four or five people.
- Each team should choose one aspect of their local authority. They should think of questions they’d like to ask, focusing on how everyone in the community can work together to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. They should think about who they’d like to ask – depending on who they’re asking, their questions may change a bit.
People could think about the area plan for building more houses, affordable housing, how the local authority handles waste output and recycling, access to broadband or phone signal in rural areas, or flooding.
- Each team should choose one or two main questions they’d like to ask.
- Everyone should come back together. They should check that teams’ questions aren’t too similar. Each team should choose the question they’d like to ask, as well as a backup question if there’s time.

Plan the visit
- The person leading the activity should plan the visit. What it looks like will be a bit different for everyone, as it’ll depend a lot on the local authority.
- You may want to ask if it’d be possible to have: a tour of the site or office (that explains what happens there), time for the group to ask questions (which you could send over in advance), and information about a project or service they could get involved in.
- Sort out the details, such as when and where you’ll meet, and how you’ll travel (together or separately). Make sure everything’s clearly communicated with parents and carers and you have all of the consent you need.

After the visit
- Everyone should get back into their teams.
- Each team should think about the answer they got to their question. What did they find out? Could they find out more information, for example, by looking online for similar cases?
- Everyone should think about how they could take the issue further. Could they work towards the linked Sustainable Development Goal in their local area?

Tags

• community impact
• community visit
• World Challenge
• world Challenge Award
• world Challenge badge

Badge Links

• Community Impact - Action
• Community Impact - Identify
• Community Impact - Learn
• Community Impact - Plan
• Community Impact - Tell
• World - Volunteer