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Nearly three weeks have passed since I passed on my Young Mayor title to Joshua Adejokun,  second Young Mayor of Newham.  He managed to attract nearly 1,700 votes, an incredible achievement demonstrating his success in reaching out to the electorate way beyond the confines of his school and friends. His deputy, Tommy Seagull was equally impressive with over 1,200 votes. Turnout across the borough rose to over 43% with nearly 10,000 young people casting their ballot. That's twice the number of young voters than last year. 

On hearing these figures I was greatly relieved as my main aim for my term was to boost the recognition of the Young Mayor scheme and more importantly just get young people actively involved in their community. I wanted young people to realise how important it was that they had a say in how their lives were run. This is a hard aim to achieve at a time when the public, especial the younger bracket, have lost faith in politics and the countries figureheads. I also congratulate the increased percentage turnout in the borough of Lewisham in their recent election. Once again reflecting that more and more young people are realising and standing up to make their voices count. 

Joshua has made a booming start to his term, already effectively campaigning against youth on youth crime which is a major concern for all young people. I feel comfort in knowing Joshua has decided to carry on the work I and my youth council started around gun and knife crime, and I believe he will do all that he can to push the issue further. I think it is important to highlight such positive moves by young people instead of constantly portraying young people in negative light as the media does thus perpetuating this creates a break in faith and communication between the community and young people.No doubt Deputy Young Mayor Tommy Seagull will be firmly by Joshua's side, supporting him in ensuring that the young people who they represent have thier views, opinions and emotions voiced on a platform that they deserve.  

I have learnt a lot during my term as Young Mayor, and have (sometimes unwillingly) matured through the experiences it offers. It has revived my belief in the general public being able to make a difference. It is this belief I wish to pass on to other young people across the country and is the core reason and aim of being involved with the 'Young Mayor Network'. 

Zuhayb Ahmed 

If you would like to hear more about Zuhayb's experiences as Young Mayor mail:zuhayb@thecampaigncompany.co.uk

For more info on the Young Mayor scheme go to www.thecampaigncompany.co.uk

www.newham.gov.uk/YoungMayor/
 

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Having live blogged the US result for hours, I'm sure you can imagine I wanted to share in the celebrations.

What happened next?

After holding back for two hours as the first states came in, emotions then just exploded. Chants of "Yes we did" and "O-bama" were continuous.

African American students marched on the North Carolina state capitol to have a peaceful celebration.

People spilled from the bar onto the street. Cars sounded their horns and people shouted Obama to anyone they could see.

Only videos can probably do the scene justice and the local TV station was filming the scenes for posterity.

The Ukraine had it's Orange Revolution - here was the USA's own "Blue Revolution".

Then came Obama's acceptance speech. It was up there with Kennedy and MLK as a sumnation of where we were. "Change has come to America" and it was not hyperbole, but absolutely true.

When Obama said it was not the weapons, or the wealth, but the strength of our ideas that counted, he reached a magisterial high that caused a powerful emotional spasm in the Raleigh Times bar. it was the absolute high point to an evening of highs. I have to admit to shedding a tear or two at that point.

We continued to monitor the North Carolina electoral college result. Having taken an early lead, we had for an hour dropped behind as Republican precincts came in. However I never wavered from my conviction, I had held all day that we would triumph even there. The results for the Senate and Governor reinforced my view. By 1am we had taken the lead again and by 2am were 12,000 in front. Whilst it has not been formally called we are now 14,000 ahead and I do not think it will change. We joked about the narrative. I told Katrina one of the staffers from HQ who led our trip out into the countryside over the last tow days, that "It was Fayetteville wot won it" ad for her to spread that word of mouth!:-)

By 3am the party was winding down. My job was done, it was time to head home. I thought I had 5 hours to kill at the bus station, but then found a bus leaving at 3.30am.

I travelled through the night and morning through an America that was still celebrating or coming to terms with its momentous decision.

At Richmond, Virginia, the former capital of the Confederacy, at 6.30am, I stopped off for a hour to wait for a change of bus. The TV was showing the news. People were all clustered around, watching. Elderly African American women were talking of their amazement at events. It was profoundly moving.

The bus then travelled through Washington. I saw the US Capitol for the first time. It was amazing to think of change coming to Washington, a majority African American town with an African American family for the first time its most important residents.

We stopped at Baltimore, where I was able to buy a copy of USA Today with the Headline "Obama wins!" and the sub headline that sums it up, "America makes history". How true it was. Can you imagine the UK or a European nation doing the same at this stage? America had recaptured the world's imagination!

Before we reboarded the bus, the African American driver noticed the Obama stickers on my bag and said to me what a great victory and we got into a conversation. When I explained that I had come over from the UK as a volunteer, he said, "Thanks for coming over, we needed all the help we could get." This was not the only time this happened. A guy in the bar said the same earlier. Later a museum attendant in New York and at the airport a white American woman also said similar things. I was so moved by this.

At 2.30pm I arrived in New York. I has originally planned to go straight to the airport from the victory party, but due to  the fluke of getting an earlier bus, I found myself as an "Englishman in New York" with three and half hours to do some touristing on the day after America made history.

Here is my "what you can do in three hours" guide:

• Get a map. I could not find one on the nearby news stands, so I quickly went lateral and bought myself a Michelin restaurant guide which had the maps I needed.
• Walk to Times Square, where only hours earlier there had been a massive Obama celebration.
• Get a subway train to Central Park. The metro, though efficient, looked rather dated compared to the recent modernisation to the London tube.
• Walk across Central Park. Its massive, but rather beautiful in its autumnal colours. Amazingly for such a Beatles completist, I did not look for the "Strawberry Fields" memorial to John Lennon. Perhaps I thought it was too sad on such a joyous day. In any case I am off to Liverpool in November to enjoy the "City of Culture". Perhaps the right place to enjoy some mournful dockside harmonica?
• Go to the Metropolitan Museum of Arts. It is also massive. I allocated an hour to this and got through all the 15c-19c European paintings on the second floor. It was worth a 7,000 mile round trip to see Burne-Jones' "Love song", let alone everything else that happened.
• Walk through Madison Avenue and Fifth Avenue to get a subway to Grand Central Station. I just love the roof. I also stood in the queue to get a rapidly selling out New York Times with the headline "Obama". There really wasn't much else to say at that point!
• Having arrived on a Greyhound and used the subway, one had to finish with a New York Taxi driver taking one to the airport. The traffic was appalling, however by then we had a long chat and he said he would take me through all the backstreets he knew to get me there well in time to avoid missing my plane. He was formally a senior supervisor at General Motors who had lost his job, so we had a good chat about the hopes for Obama and the US economy.

I flew back overnight and arrived in London on Thursday morning. In just fours days, I had the adventure of a lifetime at a point of historic change. What more could one ask for? "Bliss it was". I may not have fitted in with Wordsworth's demographic segmentation, but at least I was surrounded by a young country at ease with itself. It was a profoundly moving experience for me, so I am sure I will blog some more about it as I absorb all my experiences.

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I got 50 out of 51. The one I predicted wrongly was Indiana, which went to Obama by just 22,000 votes. I should have put more fairth on the fact that the most populated area of it watches Chicago TV stations and knew Obama far longer than most Americans

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The eyes of the world have been staring at the US for months now and you can be forgiven for missing the dramatic change which recently visited the tiny Indian Ocean country of the Maldives.

The collection of some 1,190 coral islands, grouped into 26 atolls, south-southwest of India has just held its first multi-party Presidential election since it's independence from Britain in 1968. Known primarily as a luxury tourist destination for Westerners, the total land space of the country is about 1.7 times the size of Washington DC and is home to a population of about 300,000 Sunni Muslims.

This small Islamic state has been on the long road to democratic reform for the last 4 years and has had significant obstacles to overcome on its journey, not least the obfuscation by powerful vested interests who have long controlled the levers of political and economic power.

The election of pro-democracy campaigner and former Amnesty International prisoner of conscience, Mohamed Nasheed (Anni), with just over 54% of the vote, to serve as President following 30 years of rule by defeated incumbent Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, marks a turning point for this country. It holds out the potential for the emergence of a small, yet not insignificant, liberal Islamic democracy in the region.

The record turnout across the US in Tuesday's Presidential election pales in comparison to the 86.58% of the eligible electorate who turned out in the Presidential run-off election on 28^th October in the Maldives. The challenges still facing the Maldives and its people are many but all of the signs emanating from the country suggest that the roots of lasting democratic reform have been planted and embraced by the people of the Maldives.

For the last couple of years, The Campaign Company (TCC) have been assisting fledgling NGOs and pro-democracy campaigners in the Maldives to highlight the need for democratic reform amongst their own people and bring international influence to bear on the Maldives Government.

We are especially proud of our association with Dr Hassan Saeed, patron of Maldives NGO the Open Society Association, who stood as an independent candidate in the election and attained a remarkable 17% of the vote in the first round on 8^th October, putting him in 3^rd place of 6 candidates. Whilst this failed to secure Hassan a place in the run-off round, it confirmed that this embryonic multi-party democracy needs people of his intellect, vision, values and calibre to continue its transition to pluralism.

Whilst eyes may be diverted to change elsewhere in the world, there will be those in the international community who continue to monitor and support economic, political and civil developments in the Maldives and who will be especially keen to ensure that the lessons to be learned from the Presidential elections are taken on board by the new Maldives authorities before the Parliamentary elections scheduled for early next year.

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CONGRATULATIONS! The most exciting election ever, so amazing that you
could be a part of the campaigning.

2008/11/5 Aline Delawa via Central Desktop
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I'm pretty pleased - I had predicted Ohio and Florida for Obama in my
www.predictify.com predictions but it lokks as though I called a couple of
others wrongly for McCain ..... can't win 'em all!





2008/11/5 Charlie Mansell via Central Desktop <
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If that's the official result then that is truly revolutionary!!

Are you chaps ready to be flown off to Glenrothes as soon as you get back??

2008/11/5 Morgan McSweeney via Central Desktop <
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