Oldham appoints new Youth Mayor for 2024 – and it’s time for aspiring actor Isaac to make it big

As well as hoping to win an Oscar one day, eighteen-year-old Isaac wants to help make Oldham a better place for its residents.

“Over the next year I look forward to meeting Oldham’s residents with Mr Mayor and representing young people, successfully showing members of the public what we the youth voice family, and young people as a whole, are capable of,” he said.

Isaac has been a youth councillor since he was just 12 and takes over the important role from Charlotte Clasby, a former classmate at Saddleworth School.

Isaac and Charlotte were both encouraged to join Oldham Youth Council by their form tutor following their impressive performances in their school philosophy club.

Isaac is about to start studying for a degree in acting at the MetFilm School in Leeds and wants to help raise aspirations among young people in the borough.

During his studies he wants to work on projects to spread to spread positive messages about the work of the youth council.

“There are a lot of talented people from Oldham and I want to help put us on the map,” he said.

The Youth Mayor acts as an inspirational role model for the young people of Oldham and as an ambassador for the borough, shadowing the Mayor of Oldham on civic engagements.

“Over the next year I look forward to meeting Oldham’s residents with Mr Mayor and representing young people, successfully showing members of the public what we the youth voice family, and young people as a whole, are capable of,” Isaac told guests at the Youth Mayor-making ceremony including fellow members of the Youth Council with a blessing from the new Borough Dean of Oldham the Rev Canon Daniel Burton.

And the Mayor of Oldham Zahid Chauhan said: “I like what you said about making this place a better place, a more positive place with less hatred and less division, with less division and more tolerance. If we really want to change Oldham and shape Oldham then it really needs to be led by youth.

“And that message of positivity and making this place a better place, personally from me I will be with you and support you as much as I can do.”

Oldham appointed Greater Manchester’s first ever Youth Mayor in 2009, followed by Salford then Bury, and Oldham has continued with this long and important tradition while striving to give children and young people the best start in life.

Oldham is still the only borough in Greater Manchester to have an official Youth Mayor-making ceremony, mirroring the adult role.

Oldham’s first Youth Mayor was Mohammed Adil. The pioneering move came about after Oldham Youth Council members put the suggestion to the council’s department for Children, Young People and Families. His aim was to show young people are not  anti-social yobs that they are often depicted as, but talented, committed, hardworking and positive.

Oldham Youth Council is a group of 70 democratically elected young people, aged 11- 21, who live, go to school or work in Oldham.

They work with different services and organisations to make sure young people in Oldham able to shape and influence decisions affecting their lives.

Youth councillors are elected into three types of roles – representative, officer and leadership roles including Chair and Youth Mayor.

Each January a new Vice Chair is elected, with the current Vice Chair becoming Chair and the current Chair becoming Youth Mayor Elect. And in June the Youth Mayor steps down and Youth Mayor Elect is sworn in to become Youth Mayor.

This way a Youth Councillor has at least two-and-a-half-years of experience becoming Youth Mayor.

For more information on Oldham Youth Council visit oldhamyc.com