For six years Ella has committed her life to building peace. Now aged 16 siLENT is supporting her to share her passion with others through her youth action group. She’s inspiring other young people in Lancaster to build a better world, educating and challenging them to broaden their horizons. She’s building communities of solidarity and love, bringing her peers together with young people like Mohammed, 22 yrs old, who fled from the war in Syria.
Ella has been part of the Lytham Action Impact Group since the age of 11. In an effort to make the group livelier she dragged her friends along. They soon set out on their first project to teach Year 5s and 6s about the Climate Emergency, inspired by Laudato Si. The workshop was a huge success and since then they have created projects addressing issues like mental health and promoting peace.
Ella decided to take it upon herself to become a Young Peace Journalist. With that came the opportunity to interview Mohammed who, at the age of 22, had arrived in the UK having left Syria in 2014. Ella recalls the interview as being extremely emotional, but more importantly it opened her eyes to an issue that was right on her doorstep. She says She says “I was extremely blind sighted to how difficult the situation was for those feeling to the UK. As hard as it was listening to Mohammed recall his treacherous journey, I knew that the most important thing I did was look him in the eye and listen to him, that’s all I could do.” Ella’s interview with Mohammed went on to be published in America and across the UK.
Ella with Barry and Bill Mizen from For Jimmy at the 2017 Celebrating Young People Awards.
Ella says “I`m so proud of the fact that people knew more of Mohammed’s story and about the plight of refugees from outside of Lancaster. Then getting nominated for the Celebrating Young People Awards in 2017 on top of that, I was stunned, I thought I’m not going to receive anything, I’m just doing my part and then I did! It showed me that young people need to be reminded of the fact that they are great, and we need to be recognised for all the amazing work we do. Everything is so negative in the papers about youth today, but that’s not the case. My action group proves that.” Since their meeting, Ella has brought Mohammed to meet her youth action group, school and local parish community.
Million Minutes is proud to support young leaders like Ella with funding from siLENT. In 2020 Ella is creating a new youth project - “We are People too”. Ella and her action group will create a safe space which brings young people together, giving them a platform, to raise their voice.
In 2017 Ella became the recipient of the Jimmy Mizen Award at the Celebrating Young People Awards. Since then Ella has gone on to present at the 2019 Awards Ceremony and went on to secure a grant from Million Minutes to carry out her new and emerging project “We are people too”. We are proud to support young peacemakers like Ella who are making real change in their communities.
You can read her interview with Mohammed here: https://www.indcatholicnews.com/news/31686
siLENT: Invest in young people, Change the world.