During elections it’s not uncommon to see young people out canvassing for candidates and working for campaigns, though not many of them are British. The students from Act Inspired U.S, an organization founded to encourage disadvantaged English youth to become active in their communities, spent the last week of the American election campaigning for both the Obama and Romney camps, as well as local candidates in Tampa and Orlando.
The students attend academies similar to charter schools here in the states; these academies are meant to give underprivileged children opportunities to gain a leg up that they might not normally receive. This particular venture is a combined effort between E-Act, an academy sponsor similar to charter schools, and the Transformation Trust, which provides funding for activities such as this.
The program in the United States is made up only of the best students in these schools as a chance to show them how the U.S. political process works. While most Americans are already sick of the non-stop campaigning months before the actual election, the students were impressed by just how much effort is put into a race.
Jamiah Okoye was part of the contingent. Like many of her fellow students was surprised by just how involved in the election most Americans were. Okoye, a student at Clapton Girls Academy in Hackney, England says that in the U.K. an election can pass off almost unnoticed, something that obviously doesn't happen in the States.
“The elections have been on such a large scale compared to how it is in England. In England it’s much more reserved, but here everyone get’s involved. Everyone is enthusiastic, everyone with signs, T-shirts and badges, everyone’s talking about it, it’s something that everyone is getting involved with it. You can’t live in America and not know that there’s an election going on..you can live in England and not know that they’re going on."
