I joined forces with The Body Shop and The United Nations Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth because I see the same courage, idealism and vision in the project that I see in young people. The three year campaign seeks to raise the voice of millions of young people in over 75 countries across six continents and will be pushing for legislation or policy change in each of the 75 countries the brand operates in, by partnering with NGOs who are on the ground in each territory.

Different countries have different calls to action, and in the UK, they’ve partnered with the British Youth Council to call for voting parity for 16 and 17-year-olds in the UK by 2024. This age group are legally allowed to vote in Scotland and Wales, but in England they can’t. This type of advocacy and action isn’t new for The Body Shop; historically it has a pretty impressive history of using its money, power and platform to fight for change; they’ve campaigned alongside human rights activists, against human trafficking, the burning of the rainforest, animal testing; and to urgently raise awareness during the AIDs crisis.

As a grassroots campaigner myself, I’ve spent the last seven years sitting in women’s groups, youth groups, in schools and at political conferences for young people, and there’s one thing that has been abundantly clear to me; the idea that young people are politically apathetic is completely untrue. I believe it’s a conscious misrepresentation in order to marginalise them from centralised systems of power. Young people are some of the most politically engaged people I’ve ever met, and what makes their dedication to, and comprehension of, politics so inspiring is that so many of them see it differently from how our older generations and traditional politicians do.

The conservative leadership race only reminds us that young people could run this world better than our representatives