Lewisham Young Mayor Sh’ay and Deputy Tekisha Henry. Pic: Lewisham Council

Young voters chose Kayla Sh’ay as Lewisham’s new Young Mayor for 2016-17, propelling her to a win of 14 votes over her deputy, Tekisha Henry.

The pie chart below shows just how close the election was and by how many votes cast per person out of the total 8,943 balloted votes.

The Addey and Stanhope School student and newly elected Young Mayor told ELL: “I’m so happy to have won! It’s great that the young people in Lewisham believe in me to represent them.

“I’ve got a lot of exciting ideas and plans to make Lewisham better for young people and I can’t wait to get started. I’ll be talking to the Young advisors and other young people in Lewisham so together we can develop these ideas during my year as Young Mayor.”

Among 15-year-old Sh’ay’s ambitions and hopes for the borough are to get more young people involved in politics, to believe in themselves and ‘to reach for the moon’. She also wants to help young people set up businesses put on regular events for Lewisham.

“Setting up business can be a way that young people can achieve and be a success so I’m hoping to be able to create opportunities for young people to get involved and try it out”, Sh’ay added.

According to Lewisham Metropolitan Police there have been 24,910 number of offences within the borough up to September 2016, an increase from the previous year of 23,552 offences.

Sh’ay informed ELL: “Crime and safety are big issues for young people in the borough and many of the candidates have been talking about it, it’s not easy to solve but I want to help young people believe more in themselves so they can make positive choices.”

Destiny Chapman and Riley Jhanji have been elected to represent Lewisham at the UK Youth Parliament.

YouTube candidate video – authorised to use by Lewisham Council.