 Good morning and welcome back to the Equalities and Human Rights Committee this morning. Our second panel for this morning is a very interesting and exciting panel that the committee has been working with over the last few weeks to highlight international human rights day, which is this Saturday, 10 December. The committee wanted to mark this occasion by speaking to some of the people who matter in all of this process, the young people of Scotland. What we have along with us today is two groups of pupils from two primary schools, Thornell Primary School in Wishaw, who are accompanied with their teacher, and Westfield Primary School, who are accompanied by their teacher as well. So we've got Deborah Catelyn and Liz Wells, who are the teachers, but our focus today are the kids. We're really, really pleased for you to come along and we're really pleased for some of the committee to come to your school and talk to you about what mattered to you. As you can see behind me, we've brought along some of your ideas. We did the red amber green, so some of the things that you thought we were doing well went on the green cards. Some of the things you thought we could do better went on the yellow cards, and things that we really needed to make a difference on went on the red cards, and we've got those behind us, but we're really pleased to have these with us today. But to hear your views, and I have to say I was very, very inspired for the work of this committee going forward to hear what you've got to say. So we're really keen to have you along at committee this morning and delighted that you feel able to come and sit in committee and give us your views. So we're very keen to hear from you and what you think the Scottish Parliament should be doing to ensure that we maintain your rights and the things that really matter to you. So the things that you like, but the things that you think we should fix as well. So we're really keen to hear from you. So if you want to come in, just do the same as in class, stick your hand up and let me know and tell me your name and you can come in and give me your thoughts and your feelings. So who's first? And your name young man? My name is Kai. Nice to meet you Kai. Well I think that rights of children and everyone in the world that's very important because if everyone was doing what they would like it wouldn't end very well because like we need to like work on the wars because there's a lot because like in Syria their houses are getting blown up while they're inside them. So I think that's really important and the fuel because we need to like drive cars that don't use fuel because it's polluting the world a lot. Two very very good points Kai, one about you know peace for children around the world and the other one about the environment and then we live in and how important that is. Anybody else? Yes? Oh my name's Hannah and I think we could maybe like help with gender equality especially across schools because in a lot of places as a girl I like to play many sports and swimming and football and maybe in my school or other schools I can get treated differently because I want to play a sport that is mainly played by boys or known to be played by boys so I can be treated differently because of my gender. Yeah and I know whether we're also a good women's team haven't we? Do you want to come in Alex? Hello everyone. Thank you so much for coming to see us and thanks also for your amazing presentations earlier, they were really inspiring. Some of you told me that this is your first time in this building and I just wondered if you knew that there was something about our country that you wanted to change would you guys know about how to go about doing that? Who would you want to speak to and what have you learned about how our democracy works and how you can influence it and ask for a change? Yes? Can I again? Yeah well I like the fact that in the world then not everybody's getting treated well but everybody's trying to fix it like the MSPs and that so I like the fact that they're helping and if I could change one thing about the world it would be no wars. That's a really really noble thing to want to change but also you guys are the future I mean we're sat here just now but in 15-20 years this could be you and in fact I think it may well be you in some cases and so it's important to know how this works this place works and how you your voice is as important as everybody else's. Yeah? Amanda? Yes? I would like to talk about gender stereotype because it's all over media newspapers and I don't I don't like the fact that people gender stereotype because if like stereotypically a voice colour is blue and green and I love the colour blue and green and I don't think it's like a lot of people do a gender stereotyping because they think oh you're a girl so you're weak and you don't care like and I'm a boy and I'm strong and I don't think that that's right. Excellent point Annie. Just what Hannah was saying about playing football I played football when I was wee as well and I like to play football and I like to play tennis and I was probably better than the boys that both of them but I was sort of a called a tomboy which didn't really bother me because I enjoyed playing the football and things like that but but you're right it's we don't make it that we can play together it's like girls play and one team and boys playing the other and the same we gender stereotyping as well Amanda it's like I don't like wearing dresses and high heels so um so some people sort of a looking go you're maybe not a girl as much but I'm a girl because that's that's who I am and it doesn't matter whether I want to look glamorous and I don't want to be a princess and I want to be a football player shouldn't make any difference to to who I am and how people treat me Hannah I just like to say like a lot of people don't notice when they're doing these things and if we don't notice these things then we're not going to be able to like change rooms so I think like in many like schools we should maybe do another lesson on this or something to let people know they're doing things like this because before we learned about this in class if I said or um I don't want to play football I like being a girly girl I wouldn't know what I mean by that and it just didn't mean anything but then if you look at it now once we've learned at it they kind of things could still offend us in a way so excellent point Jeremy do you think it's easy to explain that to your mum or your dad or your granny or other people because sometimes uh older people take longer to understand these things because we're a bit slow um how do you explain that just maybe it's me um how do you explain that to your mum or your dad or your granny or how would you I would just probably tell them like this I just like probably like sit down and just say you know I don't want to be a a girly girl as such or I don't want to dress in dresses all the time or I don't want to play football or something like that I would suppose I would just tell them and explain it to them and they probably understand do you think we listen yeah good the other two boys have not contributed yet if you do you want to have have something to say do you want to tell us your name I'm Ryan and it's about opinions it's like the cardboard thing it's not about it's not just about your opinion it's about others opinions so if you say your opinion doesn't matter because it's already like happened then it can still your opinion your opinion can still exist it's not just fair the way yeah so a bit of freedom of speech yeah hopefully we're giving you that opportunity here this morning to come to parliament and have your freedom of speech and we're we're listening we're listening and what about you young man when we were doing the cards I only did green green was for stuff that are good about the parliament yellow was for stuff that were good like in the middle and where were for stuff that we think you needed change I only did green because I think the parliament is really good how it is what kind of things do you think Toby that we do really well I like the right and that's about it excellent super any other questions from our welly you very much and hello every day again and it was lovely to meet you today and at the school when I came to see you if there's one thing more that you think we could do and should do better what would it be well it would be to cause boy footballers are more than girls so I think they should be the same so they're on the same amount instead of like you're earning a million pound a week and then I get a footballer in 500 000 or not equal pay what else who else one thing um the thing I think you should change is I think you should change about our votes that we should be able to vote for a presence or something to do around in this country or other countries because we have our own opinions and I think that that would be better for us to have something to say I think that's a really really good point and very recently this parliament has acted to make sure that more young people can vote than ever before and the reason for that is that you are affected by everything that happens in this country so you deserve a stake in how we make those decisions and if you consider that actually you know we have really different ages for when you're old enough to make decisions right now we need to do a bit of work I think to to make sure that those are better aligned but I think the voice of the children are the most important voices we should be listening to as politicians because as I said before you guys are the future and we are making decisions now which will impact on the way you're living your lives long after we're gone is there any one thing that each of you would want us to change that would make a difference Hannah probably speech because speech like is in everything you do to it like really and you like can have your opinion and anything you want so it could be from in your class and you say to your teacher give your teacher your teacher an idea some schools you wouldn't be allowed to talk or give your teacher ideas but in other schools you would and I think that we should have the right to do that that's a very good point what about you Amanda if there's something that we should do here that would help you what would it be apart from lowering the voting age I think I don't know like I think gender stereotyping it goes on a lot and it kind of means a lot to other people because if other people tell them like oh you're weak and it kind of upsets them so it would be it would be like the country would be a more nicer place if no gender stereotyping would be like involved in it that's a great point what about you Ryan I don't know you didn't just have them the right to be able to say what you want to say because you talked about freedom of speech yeah yeah and Kai well I was like like housing because not everybody's got a home so I'd like everybody to have shelter it's an excellent point because that was on all of the cards in our events so it was on something that we do well it was on something we need to work on and it's something in some cases we don't do so well so we heard that one loud and clear about where we need to go on housing and make sure that that works and actually the Scottish Human Rights Commission in Scotland are working with some tenants associations to make sure that they use their rights to get an adequate house and and and decent shelter so so you're on the money there Kai we your idea because there's some work being done on it already but you're absolutely right there's more work needed done to yeah and then I also like because I think user like trying to do it it's getting better it's like user improving on it because user building more houses than now because user extending our village to more than 700 houses but it's going to take a long time so but you see the differences locally yeah excellent and Toby if there's one thing more that this parliament could do to help you what would it be I think we might need some better hospitality because my great-grand died because there's not really anything you can do about that yeah yeah but we're sad we're sad with you because granny's are dead important aren't they yeah yeah but just having people that care for you and look at look at that straight away your pals in there caring for you but having people that care for you when you're having a difficult time maybe in school or at home is something that's really important yeah yeah I agree with you I'm with you on that is there anything else from our committee members that we want to to say can I say thank you so much for coming along because this has been a brilliant experience for us and when we go and we go into the chamber and we're in other committees making decisions we will always be mindful of the the information and the the ideas that you've given us this morning because when we're making laws now they're laws for a couple of years down the road a couple of years down the road you guys will all be at high school or you might be you know starting your first job or getting your own house or you know going off to university or college and we need to make sure that that world ready for your guys but they're ready for you guys with that very very good human rights based attitude and can I say well done to your teachers because I think you know they've done a superb job with you all and I think you should be very grateful for the the work that they do certainly we are and thank you so much for coming to to committee this morning because you've really helped us and I think we've got a few surprises for the rest of the day going on but we'll we'll come to that when it happens so I'm going to close committee now on that very very very important high note of the work that you think that we should do and we've got shawnts taking lots of notes so that we can take forward some of that work so thank you so much and I'll close this