Young Greens Northern Ireland Manifesto 2016 Introduction • Give Women Choice: Extend the 1967 Abortion Act to Northern Ireland, ending the archaic and oppressive healthcare inequality currently in place in NI. Young people face immense troubles in our society. We are confronted by unemployment, a lack of public provisions, • Gender Representation: Introduce quotas to increase female impending climate change, various institutionalised representation in the Assembly and in boardrooms. discriminations, and a political system which refuses to • Racial Equality: Implement and enhance measures set out in change in response to people’s needs. In Northern Ireland, the current Racial Equality Strategy. we often have to leave the country in order to find work, or in search of a less divided society. • Support Minority Languages: Introduce legislation to protect and support minority languages, including British Sign While the Executive wastes time, money and energy perpetuating Language and Irish Sign Language. sectarianism, austerity, and policies of bigotry and inequality, No-one should be working for less than what young people are left without jobs, with increasingly expensive • A Living Wage: they can live on. Raise the minimum wage to £8.25 an hour. and difficult educations, and without hope. If we can’t make change in the Assembly, we will be wasting the futures of young people across Northern Ireland, and wasting the opportunities for equality, democracy and liberty which are held here. A Good Education In this Manifesto, we’ll be highlighting some of the Green Party Northern Ireland needs a modern, inclusive, publicly policies which will help young people most, and which young funded education system. people will be fighting for and living with for the rest of our lives. Young people currently endure a religiously-divided compulsory school system, which not only helps perpetuate sectarianism, but We’re proud to promote, through these policies: also divides students through academic selection, and by gender. An Equal Society Our schools, colleges and universities suffer from a lack of A Good Education funding, and an increasing drive towards marketisation that A Clean Environment leaves students undervalued and commodified, being made to A People’s Democracy use education as a tool for employment, rather than as a means and A Fair Economy to pursue their interests. For the sake of students and young people, and the future of An Equal Society Northern Ireland, we need to move towards a comprehensive, integrated and coherent education system, away from the Northern Ireland currently suffers under great inequalities. As money-first policies that are currently being pushed in the sector. campaigners for social justice, the Young Greens will fight We need to stop wasting students’ time with sectarianism, marketisation, and stress, and create a fairer education system. against these inequalities, and support measures to make Northern Ireland free from discrimination and marginalisation based on sexuality, race, gender, ethnicity or disability. • Integrated, Modern Education: Create a single, publicly funded, non-selective, integrated secular education system. We also acknowledge the harsh inequalities between rich and • Fewer Exams: Move away from standardised exams and poor in our society, and want to see a fairer distribution of wealth; towards continuous assessment, to support students and away from the richest in our society, towards the majority. We provide them with adequate choices. want to see everyone in our society have the same opportunities to live fulfilling lives. • Relationship and Sexuality Education (RSE): Ensure RSE starts early and is relevant to pupils at each stage in their Instead of wasting time, patience and money by setting development and maturity. individuals and communities against one another, NI should reach • Special Educational Needs: Put in place post-18 plan for all out to include everyone in a better, fairer future. young people with special educational needs before they leave • Equal Marriage: Extend same-sex marriage to Northern the education system on a statutory basis. Ireland. • Further Education: Value our Colleges of Further and Higher • End the Blood Ban: Halt the unnecessary and wasteful ban Education and the skills, crafts and trades they teach. on blood donations from men who’ve had sex with men. • No Fee Rise: Oppose plans to raise tuition fees from £3000 • No Conversion Therapy: Ban the dangerous practice of so- to £9000 in Northern Ireland, and research various forms of called ‘Gay Conversion Therapy’, as well as banning ‘reparative funding for higher education. therapy’ for transgender people of all ages. • No Department Cuts: End cuts to entire departments within • Trans Healthcare: Push for the provision of accessible, universities·and investigate the long-term effects of making respectful and inclusive healthcare for transgender individuals certain subjects completely unavailable within Northern Ireland. of all ages. • Maintain EMA: No reduction to EMA provision, and research • Fund Refuges: Provide adequate funding for women’s refuges ways of funding the expansion of EMA. for survivors of domestic violence. A Clean Environment A Fair Economy While climate change threatens everybody in our world, The current model of neo-liberal capitalism has failed young people will be especially affected by it, unless young people. We are feeling the burdens of zero-hours governments like the NI Executive take action now. We contracts, austerity, unemployment, and commodification, want to see measures to mitigate climate change which often forced to work multiple jobs or make significant cut- simultaneously and necessarily also reduce poverty and backs to be able to afford basic necessities. inequality, and promote democracy and social justice. This hardship is unjustifiable in a society as rich as ours- measures must be taken to transfer wealth back from the richest • Divestment: Support campaigns to divest from fossil fuel to the poorest, and to ensure no-one has to live in poverty. investments, including from universities and all public pensions. • Fracking: Ban all types of unconventional fossil fuel extraction, We must transition away from the current wasteful, unequal including fracking. economy, and create a better society for everyone. • Fuel & Fuel Poverty: Provide insulation and clean power systems for existing buildings, and ending the inefficiency and • Living Wage: Raise the minimum wage to £8.25 an hour, so profiteering that lead to fuel poverty. that no-one has to work for less than what they can live on. • Clean Energy: Support clean and sustainable energy • No Zero-Hours: Reform Company Law to end oppressive solutions, with an emphasis on small-scale, local and co- short-termism present in many jobs on zero-hours contracts. operative schemes, especially community-owned schemes. • No Corporation Tax Cut: The Stormont Executive parties • Public Transport: Encourage cycling by building and want to cut public funds by giving corporations a tax break expanding Greenways across NI, and improve the availability amounting to an estimated £240 million. This would damage and quality of public transport, especially in rural areas. public services, benefits and jobs, and we oppose it. • Fair Rents: Introduce legislation for rent controls and longer tenancies, halting unfair high rents. A People’s Democracy • Green Jobs: Create jobs in the building sector by building One of the reasons so many young people leave Northern sustainable homes and investing in the skilled workforce Ireland is the lack of democratic accountability in needed to build and maintain them, as well as skills in clean Stormont, and the feeling that the Executive refuses power industries. to move beyond the politics of hostility which bear increasingly less relevance to the lives of youth here. Democracy is entirely necessary for Northern Ireland to move Through these policies and the vision and past the areas in which it is currently wasteful, both through the principles of the Green movement, we hope Assembly and through workplace and educational democracy, to improve conditions for young people representing often-marginalised workers and students. We join the Green Party in calling for: in Northern Ireland, and provide hope for disenfranchised youth. • Votes at 16: Lower the voting age for elections and referenda The Green Party in Northern Ireland stands for a to 16, giving more young people a say in decisions that affect society in which we all flourish together. them. • A Civic Forum: Establish a civic forum with powers to present We will fight for investment for our public services. proposals to the Assembly. We demand equality as of right, whatever • Worker Ownership: Promote co-operatives and community your gender, ethnicity, ability or disability, ownership, and support for unionisation and the right to age, economic status, sexual orientation, or collective bargaining. other status. • Student Democracy: Promote independent student activism, introducing laws to support autonomous and functional We stand for secure, living wage jobs, clean student unions. power and a healthy environment for a thriving, sustainable economy. We stand for the common good. Vote Green in 2016! Representing Young People- Young Green Candidates in 2016 Ellen Murray, Georgia Grainger, Helen Farley, West Belfast: Strangford: South Antrim: “I am standing for election because I “Having been Chair of Young Greens “I was moved to stand for election as believe that our political system, which from 2014 to 2015, I’m now Equalities I believe in the Green Party’s vision of impinges on every aspect of our lives, Officer for the Green Party in Northern grassroots democracy and non-violence. should be accessible to everyone. Ireland and Environmental and Ethical I want to offer a peaceful non-sectarian “As a young, queer, trans woman, I hope Trading Officer for Queen’s University option for the people of South Antrim.” that standing for election as an MLA will Belfast Students’ Union. I’ve been offer choice and hope for those who involved in campaigns for equal need it most.” marriage, integrated education and fossil fuel divestment.”.