Thanks to all of you who have posted your comments on my blog and the forum pages on the communities site.
Picking up on Hilary Mason's point on Monday, I absolutely agree that there are a number of ways for young people to get involved locally and we should certainly be supporting young people to make the most of all opportunities available. As I mentioned on day two I was privileged to visit South City Radio on White Paper launch day to meet some more young people getting involved in their local area. A short video of my visit there will be posted on here shortly.
Something else I wanted to pick up on from your comments is about the importance of equipping people to become active citizens. Trevor Burchick (10 July) makes an important point about the new City and Guilds Award in active citizenship. Trevor - thanks for your post, you too are an inspiration to me. iPAC is very important and should certainly be supported. MJ (14 July) echos this point and the iPAC qualification is a great step towards enabling people to gain the skills and confidence they need.
Operation Black Vote (OBV) is another organisation supporting the development of individuals to become active citizens. OBV runs shadowing, mentoring and citizenship projects which in their own words are designed to "inform, inspire and/or nurture the next generation of BME decision makers." It's inspiring to see so many organisations committed to the same aim.
I have some more video clips from Operation Black Vote and another of our White Paper case studies - Coin Street Community Builders that will be posted here shortly.
Thanks again for your comments - don't forget to look at my Twitter channel if you have a spare few minutes throughout the day.