Welcome!

Hi! Welcome to Louder Together. I am so grateful that you stopped by to look at our page. This introductory blog has been written by Sophie (Founder of Louder Together). In the future I am keen to get other young people to share their thoughts on the blog too, so we can have a little collection of stories for people to use as a way of educating themselves, but also just to get to know us better.

Why did you want to start Louder Together?

I suppose the best place to start would be explaining a little bit about the reason I wanted to start Louder Together. I have always thought that young people are amazing. They have so much to offer and so many have hidden challenges that many people would never realise. For two and a half years I was lucky enough to be a Learning Support Assistant in a secondary school. I loved this job, mainly because I got to see how truly amazing so many of our young people are. I got to work on a one-to-one basis with some of the most amazing students (though I may be slightly biased!) and believe that so many of these young people could have a massive impact on the world.

I would get so frustrated about the fact that these amazing young people would often get overlooked and knew that something needed to change. I had two options. I could wait and hope that someone, somewhere, would create a platform to advocate for these young people, or I could act and make a change myself.

So, that is how we began! I had a list of young people who I knew were amazing, and (after so many consent forms!) we had our first meeting as Louder Together.

What is Louder Together?

Currently, on our website, this is what it says; "Louder Together has been created with the aim of giving our young people a platform to share with adults the reality of what it is like to face adversities in childhood in today's world. Together, we will show the potential of the next generation, and equip adults with the knowledge they need to better understand and support our youth. We will be louder together". But what does that actually mean?

Louder Together consists of five people. We are Ellie, Molly, Sky, JJ and Sophie (me) - a group of slightly mad, very determined people. Though I am the adult of the group I am still fairly young. I make sure everyone is alright and ensure Louder Together runs smoothly in the background. Everything else is a huge joint effort from us all.

We all have our own challenges, but we have one thing in common. We want to give all young people a voice. We want to make sure adults have a space where they can learn what is like to be a young person, through the words of young people. This is a safe space for everyone to feel comfortable. It is a platform to give young people the space to educate others and share experiences. It is a space for adults to develop their understanding of young people, and gain a better understanding of how truly resilient some of our young people have to be.

What is in our future?

We have some brilliant ideas so far. Everything from leaflets to a YouTube channel has been discussed. Currently, we are going to be focussing more on social media, and spreading awareness that way. Eventually, we will be incorporating videos and training sessions into our work. We are also all very keen to get into schools and provide training for staff, and awareness videos for young people.

What could you do?

I hope that reading this blog has given you some insight into the reasons behind Louder Together. The team here would absolutely love it if you stuck around. We would love to have your support with this venture. You could support us by following us on social media (just search for Louder Together and look for our dinosaur logo). We would also love to hear from you! If you have any stories you would like to share or anything you feel you could contribute to Louder Together you can either use the ‘contact us’ feature on the website, or email me at Loudertogether@outlook.com.

As well as this, if there is anything you think we could do to help you, or if you have any questions for us, please don’t hesitate to ask. We would be more than happy to do what we can, especially if it helps to advocate.

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