99% Coalition Group
“Young people’s voices matter, but with so many challenges facing them around education and employment, it is easy for those voices to be lost. The work IARS is continuing with the 99 per cent campaign is an important step in giving our youth the chances they need to develop as individuals and contribute to the growth and strength of Britain, and I am pleased to support their on-going efforts to affect change through a youth-led structure.”
Brooke Kinsella OBE, 2011
In trying to maximise the Campaign’s impact and reach across the social spectrum, and into policy, we have enlisted the support of a number of people and organisations who are in a position to support our work.
The 99% Coalition Group is made up of a combination of individuals, voluntary organisations and groups from the government/public sector who share our vision and have the resources or expertise to help advance it.
They include:
Represented by Committee Treasurer James Whitaker and National Chair Will Cass, Compass Youth are a growing youth movement, and the under-30 youth wing of the think tank Compass. They organise to engage young people in their campaigning work in defence of youth services, and in pursuit of their vision of a Good Society: namely ”one where there is far greater social, political, and economic equality; where democracy is deepened at every level; where the planet’s sustainability is made an urgent priority. It’s a society where the market is made to work as the servant of society.”
Charlton Athletic Community Trust
Represented by Nick Darvill, The Charlton Athletic Community Trust runs a Crime Prevention Campaign aimed at deterring children and young people from becoming involved in gangs, violence, criminality and knife crime. They identify and target the most vulnerable young people and offer advice and support to young people who no longer wish to be part of a gang and are fearful of the repercussions, along with families of people affected by knife crime.
Represented here by their Chief Executive Simon Fulford, Khulisa UK delivers powerful behaviour-change intervention programmes addressing all aspects of the crime cycle, fostering personal and community regeneration. Their work is drawn from a 14 year track record of being at the forefront of restorative justice, violence-reduction and youth diversion projects in South Africa, based on the belief that violence is learned behaviour and can therefore be un-learned, radically reducing the chances of reoffending and opening up new possibilities for forgiveness, restoration and rehabilitation.
Represented by Joe Dobson, Skyway works with thousands of children and young people in London each year providing general youth club activities, alongside targeted work with young offenders and those at risk of exclusion from school. Their most effective work is in recruiting and training young “peer leaders” to themselves lead the youth work, sports coaching and mentoring of other younger children. In fact programmes led by peer leaders have had greater impact on children and young people than those led by adult workers, helping to normalise the idea that young people can and do take the lead for improving their neighbourhoods – meaning that funders and partner organisations are not apprehensive about the concept.
U R Boss (The Howard League for Penal Reform)
Represented on the coalition board by Training and Development Officer Ross Little, The Howard League run a project called “U R Boss”, 
aiming to create pressure for change in the youth justice system, and to ensure that young people who come into contact with it know their rights, and are able to get their experiences heard, along with their ideas for change. U R Boss is a project led by young people for young people that is part of the Howard League for Penal Reform. For more information, or if you are a young person who has experience of being in custody or of the criminal justice system, visit the U R Boss website.
Represented here by Chief Executive Thomas Lawson, Leap works nationally with young people and adults, helping them to understand and manage the everyday conflict in their lives, and supporting them to become role models and leaders of positive change. Leap works in partnership with organisations ranging from schools and community groups to youth offending institutes and prisons, providing training courses, youth programmes, action research and help in developing national and local policy.
Represented by Founder and Director Rob O’Donovan, The Eleven is a youth commications agency built from the ground up by a collection of young people (all between 16-24), focusing exclusively on the youth market, and leveraging extensive networks of young people to develop powerful youth-led brands. A major part of their work is now in the third sector, and contributes in important ways to correcting popular and misleading assumptions about young people that seem to characterise the branding and advertising industry, and by extention public life more generally.
Crown Prosecution Service London
Represented on the board by Alison Saunders, the Crown Prosecution Service is aiming to address barriers and disproportionality effectively, to perform their role fairly and transparently, and work with stakeholders and the public to improve their practice and deliver better justice for everyone. Supporting the 99% Campaign will enable young people to feedback and evaluate their service delivery, and better inform prosecutors of the issues facing young people, which is essential to running a fair and equal prosecution system.
Represented by Assistant Chief Officer Andrew Hillas, London Probation Trust works to reduce reoffending and make London safer. The trust is committed to the inclusion of all residents of London, and particularly so for historically disadvantaged groups, including young adults, and is keen to assist the 1% join the 99% by helping them to avoid offending, having worked over a long period with young people at risk of joining gangs.
Manon Elise Sel
A Politics and International Development graduate, living and working in London. Passionate about the ways in which Social Media interacts with and influences politics, social change and International Development. An avid writer for various independent political blogs, I believe that the IARS 99% campaign blog is a fantastic forum for young people to voice their thoughts and opinions on issues that affect them and to demonstrate that the majority of young people have positive, valuable contributions to make to society.
Richard Harries
Richard is the Chairman of Attend UK, and a Senior Civil Servant with over twenty years experience in government, serving under five different Prime Ministers. He is currently responsible for innovation
at the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG).
Richard’s early career was as a professional mathematician, working on issues as diverse as the operational security of prison perimeters, the social impact of allowing convicted prisoners to wear their own clothes, and the financial impact of “three strikes and you’re out” legislation. More recently he has led government policy on volunteering and charitable giving, and spent several years working on local government finance issues. Richard is Head of Profession for DCLG’s Operational Researchers.
Rakshita Patel
Rakshita (Raks) has over 20 years’ experience of working as a Manager, and then as a Senior Manager, in the public sector. Raks has a BSc (Hons) in Economics and Government from Brunel University and an MSc in Race and Ethnic Relations from Birkbeck College, University of London. Her areas of expertise are Race, Health, and Crime and Policing.
Raks has a real interest in working with young people, especially disadvantaged and excluded young people from deprived backgrounds, to enable them to be the best that they can be. She wanted to work with the 99% Campaign, and more broadly IARS, because they are both working to empower young people with a voice so that they can shape and improve public services for the better.
