The Citizens Now Podcast Debs Erwin

In the final conversation of the season, I speak with Alan Fay from Dublin who is a disability campaigner and was a valued member of the Youth Council of EPIC Ireland for 5 years championing care awareness. EPIC stands for ‘Empowering People in Care’ and it is an advocacy organisation for children and young people in the care system in Ireland. Alan and I met through a piece of research I conducted on behalf of EPIC, and we speak a little bit about it in the interview.Alan’s passion for ensur...

This week we hear from Lauren Roberts-Turner, a researcher and campaigner from England who specialises in issues relating to young people and the welfare state, poverty, and the economics of social justice. When we spoke she was involved with Leaders Unlocked which does incredible work enabling young people to speak out and have influence on the issues that impact their lives. Thanks to Rose Dowling, CEO at Leaders Unlocked, for putting me in touch with Lauren. Lauren & I talked about her...

Following on from last week’s conversation with Kate Yeung, I got to speak with her former colleague Sen Toyotoshi (she/they) who at the time of our call was a Project Support Officer with MYAN, the Multicultural Youth Advocacy Network and now works in a Partnerships role at an accounting software company with an aim to help small businesses. Sen was born in Paraguay, moved to Canada, studied in Japan and has been living in Australia since 2022.We chat about how Sen brings together their inte...

This week’s conversation is with Kate Yeung Ching Yung (she/her) who works as a Project Officer for MYAN, the Multicultural Youth Advocacy Network. MYAN is an Australian non-profit that works in partnership with young people, government, and civil society to promote the rights and interests of young people from refugee and migrant backgrounds and ensure these are recognised in policy and practice. Originally from Mauritius and now based in Melbourne, Kate first came to Australia in 2019 for u...

Today’s conversation is with Mia Pobloth, who is currently doing a gap year teaching English at a school in Madrid, but when we spoke, she was a final year pupil at Shimna Integrated College in Newcastle, Co. Down in the North of Ireland/Northern Ireland. Mia was a long-time member of the school’s Amnesty International group and as you may already be aware Amnesty International is a global NGO which campaigns for human rights with over 10 million members and supporters worldwide. Its work par...

For our first episode I speak with Delvina Sejdii, a young peacebuilder from North Macedonia. Delvina is a member of UNOY – the United Network of Young Peacebuilders which is a youth-led network for young people involved in various peacebuilding activities in 69 countries around the world. When we recorded our call, Delvina was working at a youth project called MultiKulti in her home city of Kumanovo which is run by the Center for Intercultural Dialogue, a civil society NGO and she continues...