Met on Thursday evening with 25 young people in the Avonmouth and Kingsweston Neighbourhood Partnership. Had youth representatives from Sea Mills, Lawrence Weston, Avonmouth and Shirehampton. The meeting was set up to discuss how young people can become involved in the decision making in their area – and it was brilliant!!
This initial meeting concentrated on finding out their views about their areas and guess what – they are not a lot different from the views of the adults. They feel intimidated by drunks and drug addicts on the streets. They are worried about all the shops closing. They want somewhere to hang out where they are not harassed by adults and the police. (Alright most adults don’t raise this one)
We agreed next steps to be setting up of youth forum groups linked to the youth parliament in each area. We have also found some money to take them away on a residential weekend where they and the youth workers (who have been brilliant) can develop their plans and importanly build their confidence to articulate them.
I am convinced that we need to do what we can to reduce the inter-generational lack of understanding that unfortunately fuels a lot of the tensions in our communities. Not all the kids in our communities are yobs, neither does wearing a hoddy mean that you should be feared by anyone over the age of 35. The starting point for reducing that tension has to be for the two ‘sides’ to meet. So I am hopeful that as we equip our young people with the confidence to enter the local community world – which is dominated by the 50+ – we can at least bring some understanding that we really are not that different.
