Leading Societal Change from 15 Years Old with Founding CEO of Youth Leads UK, Saeed Atcha MBE #31
It’s common for young people to feel disenfranchised and that their voices fall upon deaf ears. Less common, though, is founding a charity at 15 years of age to make societal change.
Saeed Atcha - the youngest recipient of an MBE in 2019, and the youngest ever Deputy Lieutenant of Greater Manchester - founded Youth Leads UK which, since its inception, has supported over 7,000 young people with opportunities and skills development.
What does it take to be driven to achieve so much in such relative youth, and for an initially small project to make an impact on a national scale? Saeed shares his story with Lee Cooper on this week’s Extrology.
Lee and SAEED discuss:
Events that catalysed the foundation of his charity at just 15 years old
The strength that comes from empowering young people to initiate vital conversations
The challenges and frustrations that led Saeed to take action at such a young age
Saeed’s drive & determination to grow Youth Leads UK to influencing systemic changes
Links & references:
Lee Cooper: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leecooperrecruiter/
Saeed Atcha MBE: https://www.linkedin.com/in/saeedatcha/
Youth Leads UK: https://www.linkedin.com/company/xplode-magazine/
Get in touch: lee@extrology.com
Episode highlights:
“I was never in school for grades. School was the only stable thing in my life, away from the chaos of my home life, and to be told that the thing that I enjoy doing that is keeping me in school in the first place was going to be taken away; I got really angry. That married up with the negative press that I saw in the morning, so I decided that I wanted to be part of the press and publish positive news stories about young people.” - 4:55 - Saeed Atcha MBE
“As a 15 year old I didn't really read newspapers, it was just what I saw on the front pages in the shop. But I'd never seen such strong language on the front pages of newspapers before their attack on young people, or at least not that I could remember. So it was a sense of, ‘Can this happen?’. It was anger, fury, then disbelief. Then when I went to school to be then told you can't do the school magazine, again it was disbelief and anger. I just wanted to get out of that situation.” - 8:20 - Saeed Atcha MBE
“Our tagline right at the start for the charity was ‘By young people, for young people’. That rings true today, we still are informed on all of our decisions by the people that we are there to serve.” - 11:00 - Saeed Atcha MBE
“There were two glowing encounters early on that made me decide this couldn’t be a one-time thing. This is helping young people develop their skills and develop their potential. That's why the decision was made to actually formalise this into a charity. My friends and I had no idea what we were getting ourselves into, where we were going to go with it, whether we would continue on ourselves given our own careers and all the rest of it. But yeah, what a journey.” - 14:25 - Saeed Atcha MBE
“A lot of organisations and people still come to us every day saying, ‘How do we engage more young people? How do we encourage more youth voice?’. The organisation is a little different to what we were at first; we were just the magazine, now we are much more about systemic changes within decision making bodies that actually give young people the right space & support to have their voices heard and acted upon.” - 23:10 - Saeed Atcha MBE
“Rather than being frustrated and angry at something, use it. Use that energy you have to try and change it, and try and at least influence the change if you can't make the change yourself. That's the kind of journey I try to put our young people through every three months, and that's that's where we are today as an organisation.” - 32:20 - Saeed Atcha MBE
“Before I got married, I'd say success for me was making a difference in the world and working flat out to change things. Now I have to think about others more immediate to me and, given the pandemic, I've become closer to members in my family. Success for me now is not giving up, it’s being happy with the bit that you're able to do, and it’s bringing others along with you on the journey.” - 40:30 - Saeed Atcha MBE
Extrology is sponsored by Progresso Talent Partners who for more than 25 years have successfully delivered interim and permanent leadership talent to transform businesses and to hire the talent you need to enable your business to thrive: https://www.progressotalent.com/