Young Sheffield: How The Star is putting the city’s youth in the spotlight – and there are exciting giveaways to be won

Big Brother Burngreave BBQ and football tournamet at Concord Sport Centre

As a community news reporter, funded by Facebook but based in The Star's office, I am filled with enthusiasm and looking to be a voice for the under-represented parts of society in Sheffield.

And I believe one of these is the under-25s.

There are many young people in the city who want to be heard and have important issues they want to address.

Big Brother Burngreave BBQ and football tournament at Concord Sports Centre - an example of the good things young people are doing in Sheffield. Picture: Dean Atkins

They are passionate about equality, street safety, climate change, mental health, diversity, democracy and politics.

I think there is not enough coverage on the positive work they are doing to make their home city a better place to live.

Post-millennials – the bottom end of the millennial generation – are the first generation to live without ever really knowing a time before YouTube, Facebook and Instagram.

This has become one of their main methods of contact – a way of getting information and entertainment.

We all use our devices for these things so reaching this community with these tools only makes sense.

I have created a campaign, Young Sheffield, through Twitter and Instagram where I will be holding regular giveaways for those who follow and retweet my posts.

Prizes include free family swimming and ice skating passes from SIV, cinema tickets from The Light and bowling passes for Virgin Money Lounge.

I encourage all young people to follow the Twitter account sheffield_young and Instagram account young.sheffield where they can see when, how and where to enter these exciting competitions.

Young Sheffield is promoting the city’s summer events with the #summereventscalendar and #youngsheffield hashtags.

Please share your important stories through these platforms which I hope can be a space for all young Sheffielders speak freely. I want to write about them and the spread the word about their positive news.

In particularly deprived communities, it is easy to become disengaged from education and experience dark times.

Through publicising the work dedicated youths and local organisations are doing, I hope to demonstrate that they are fighting against the negative forces in their neighbourhoods.

I hope their stories will be seen by all Star readers in print, online and through social media.