Connaught's Olympic Youth Ambassador

Connaught Olympic Youth Ambassador – Sara Patel

I wanted to be a 2012 Olympic youth ambassador because I thought it was a great scheme set up by WalthamForest. I also wanted to be more aware about the future of the area I live in. I think that the Olympics are a great stepping stone for many young people as it will enrich the people of the four host boroughs of the Olympics and bring together a strong sustainable community.

London will host the Olympic Games and Paralympics Games in the summer of 2012. The 608-acre Olympic Park will be situated in the vicinity of Stratford, in the LowerLeaValley. The park will stretch from TempleMills in the north to Pudding Mill Lane in the south, on the edge of Mill Meads.World-class venues elsewhere in London will also accommodate Olympic events. These will include tennis at Wimbledon, archery at Lord’s, the triathlon in Hyde Park, road cycling in Regent’s Park, beach volleyball on Horse Guards Parade, football at Wembley and shooting at the Royal Artillery Barracks in Woolwich. The ExCel exhibition centre will host six events and several others will take place across the river in Greenwich. An 80,000-seat Olympic stadium in west Stratford will be the centre piece of the purpose-built development.

My role as being a youth ambassador is to represent the youth of WalthamForest. The most important job for me is to put across the views and ideas of students at Connaught to make the Olympics the best thing that will ever happen to East London.One of the most important aspects for us youth ambassadors is the legacy!This is basically about what is going to happen after the Olympics are over.I as a youth ambassador am here to represent all the views of WalthamForest youth about the Olympics and the legacy after the Olympics.

So far in my role as youth ambassador I have met Ade Adepitan, a Paralympics medalist. Meeting him was great fun; he inspired most of us youth ambassadors as he talked about how he overcame his struggles throughout life.Visiting the Olympic park was really fun; I was able to see how much effort was being put into it.Public speaking training was very good, we had been trained by professionals to strengthen our confidence, this was really good as it prepared us for the media, as we will be interviewing many people like Kelly Holmes and David Cameron about there opinions about the Olympics.One of the best things that has happened to me whilst being a youth ambassador is that as I was in a meeting, I was given the opportunity to audition for a film, which promotes major businesses to invest in East London due to the Olympics.I passed the audition and I am now currently working on this film with Red Bee Media.

Please see the presentation that I have given to all Connaught students in recent assembly time: