The Tea Dances
Some people are worried that there is a split growing...
Read More“We cannot expect young people to ever be their best if we only expect their worst.” – Luke Rodgers
Award Winner Luke Rodgers attended an Enterprise Lab debate last week at the Houses of Parliament on the issue of youth unemployment and social enterprise. Perceptions and the right attitude are all important, he says.
A lot of last week’s thought-provoking and interesting debate was about people’s attitudes and perceptions of young people, as well as young people’s opinions of themselves. As a society we need to change the way we look at young people. There is so much negativity in the media on the subject of young people.
This paralyses employers – they are not prepared to give young people a chance, because they are so risk averse and in the current climate are looking for as much experience and quality they can get for their money. We also tend to brand people on benefits as less then ourselves, lazy and ignorant when this is not the case.
I think that young people are their own motivators and that ultimately it is up to them to do something about getting a job. I appreciate that current issues may make this difficult, but with determination and dedication they can make this happen.
We are all in this together and we need to see that our attitudes are half the problem. We cannot expect young people to ever be their best if we only expect their worst. And young people can’t expect to have anything just handed to them if they aren’t going to work for it.
New ways to express opinions?
A lot of the young people I met at the event really felt that by being there they were making a difference to how the government were tackling the problem of unemployment.
However, I found that only a handful of young people felt confident enough to speak so they may not have got their views across. Another concern was that there was a lack of attention paid to disabled young people. There was only one representative there, and I thought that perhaps they did not give a full view of the typical needs.
That’s not to say that the event was tokenistic, but I think we need to find alternative ways for young people to be heard in addition to these debates.
These are some of the main topics debated and Luke (who is pictured above at a different event), gives his thoughts on each.
We need a central data base for all young people, businesses, education and employment to be able to offer jobs, education and opportunities.
Here they were speaking about having an accessible online data base for young people to upload details of themselves so that jobs can be offered to them as well as searched for. I imagine it would be a little bit like Facebook but a job version where instead of profiles you have CVs and information about your experiences. On paper this is a great idea, but would this work?
Should young people be able to work off their criminal records using the educational system by earning qualifications such as A-Levels?
I think this is a good idea but is not as black and white as it sounds. I think there is a level of commitment to achieving further education that cannot be under estimated, but I am not too sure that it would send out the right message. I imagine people would feel that we are letting young people get away with crimes.
On the other hand, if done correctly and the right young person has proven themselves to benefit, then I think it would make a huge difference. We need to accept that young people do make mistakes due to several different things that go on in their lives and we as a society need to show them that we understand that, offer the opportunities for them to prove themselves, and collectively be proud of their successes and achievements.
The government is speaking about putting £14million towards hiring people to wake people up in the morning.
What a waste of money, I cannot see how this is going to help anybody. The issue here is not that young people are sleeping in, it’s more complex than that.
The government is in the early discussions about putting a large amount of money into start-up business loans and grants.
I think this is a fantastic idea, if carried out correctly. I think one of the greatest motivators to anybody is having self-direction and having purpose. Starting a business doing something you love gives you passion and purpose.
Not only does setting up a business give you a job, it brings money back in to the economy and potentially could lead to your business employing other people and closing the gap of unemployment.
I don’t necessarily think that just giving young people money will allow them to set up a business – a key part of the scheme would be some kind of mentoring and training.
Luke is a Young Person’s Ambassador at National Fostering Agency. You can visit the Enterprise Lab website here.
