Fellowship Youth Focus

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Comment by Tessy Britton on April 11, 2010 at 16:35

I just wanted to let you know about a really interesting report just published by Demos - An Anatomy of Youth:

"As they enter the next decade, British young people are in a precarious position — demographically, economically and politically. Stereotyped by newspapers, sensationalised by marketeers and pigeon-holed by politicians, our cultural narratives about young people are not fit for purpose. It is little wonder that young people are more alienated from formal politics than at any other point in recent history. But that matters, more now than ever.

Comment by Rajeeb Dey on April 7, 2010 at 8:11

@Laura This is a great scheme and how I initially got involved with the RSA. In fact a similar approach was taken when the Awards used to be called the RSA Young Leaders Award (in association with Whitbread Young Achievers) and at the time I was too young (17) to be awarded the RSA Associate Fellowship but when I turned 18 was given the Fellowship. It's a good way of getting young people engaged although I must admit that as a young Fellow it is pretty daunting and hard to fully engage with the organise. I have personally have engaged with the Education work and Entrepreneurship related activity but am keen to see more Young People focused strategies and events and happy to share thoughts.

Comment by Ian Lewis on April 5, 2010 at 7:43

Hi, Mike, sent you off on the wrong track...sorry. The outdoor adventure track has, as you say, been long dead, but the idea of adventure being where you find it is not. Whether adventure in community, art, politics, business, education, et al., it is the wonderful tool it has always been for young people to fully own and self-realise.

The area I am much more concerned with is the getting ahead of the wave. Really great programmes do exist, both at the 'extreme' end - knife, gun and gang crime, and at the middle areas, in schools, communities, etc.

Evaluations such as 'The Cost of Doing Nothing', and 'Why Adventure' say much, but the message and the actions have not been followed through. My two charitable trusteeships have tried to help the messages and the actions: Brathay Trust - which can use outside adventure, but tends not to given its city bases, and Every Family Matters - which has no outdoor programmes, are both successful exactly because they do as you say - use real experience. The Real World Learning Campaign is another good example, and this has political success which would be great to tap into...and we have NFER and others with great evidence that what we suggest really works.

First steps...?

Comment by Ian Lewis on April 4, 2010 at 12:27

Hi, Mike, Hi, Hilary, Your points are very relevant. If you have not come across The Challenge

it has some potential, too. I would like to use the RSA Fellowship opportunity to go ahead of the wave a little, the wave being the normal funding/events/programmes/strategies which seek to help young people. One area which we might discuss is 'cleaning up the sour pastures of youth' [Plato], where the broadest interpretations of helping healthy youth to evolve were proposed. It seems most of those seeking to help want to start again, reinventing reinvention. Perhaps the answer lies with an overall view which supports young people realising their potential through experiential [real] projects. www.campaignforadventure.org suggests 'A risk in time saves crime/abuse/self-harm/antisocial behaviour/, etc.' [Prof. Heinz Wolff]. At this point The Challenge and Risk behaviours come together as solutions. So much is going on, but I still think, as the RSA, we could look at starting from the wider view.

Comment by Hilary Lane on April 3, 2010 at 20:02

Thanks, Mike. I'll look at the website. Ian and Mike, you both make some interesting points; I should like to discuss these further with you.

Comment by Ian Lewis on April 3, 2010 at 16:09

Wow, back from the Romanian/Bulgarian jaunt. I would like to put down a marker for Courage, confidence and self-esteem as preconditions for healthy youth - and their leadership role in society. Every time i work with young people at risk or in trouble, i meet either low self-esteem young people or brittle self-esteem young-people, the latter being aggressively defensive. It seems to be present in self-harm, drugs, crimes, anti-social behaviours and most unhealthy pursuits. Perhaps we should look to this area for first stories. Those nations with confident yp save loads of money on health, prisons, education, social-work. Have we some good anecdotes for Hilary?

Comment by Hilary Lane on April 2, 2010 at 8:52

Rosie, you mention young leaders. Having recently become involved, from a background in teaching, in work developing leadership effectiveness in adults, I'm increasingly turning my thoughts to youth leadership - what is it? how can we identify the competences? How well do the "adult" ones translate? how can these competences be delivered and/or developed? There are youth leadership programmes which are sports based. Opportunities for leadership experience also exists through participating in D of E, World Challenge, CCF and the like, but the acquisition of leadership skills and competence is rather ad hoc. How can young people become leaders? What different leadership contexts and opportunities exist for young people? I'm interested in doing some anecdotal gathering of fact and opinion.

Comment by Ian Lewis on January 29, 2010 at 12:19

The meeting, which I strongly support, needs to have a 50% youth presence from the start. Sadly, if in Feb I'm working on youth projects in US and Romania from 8th - 28th, but it should still go ahead.

As a practical contribution, you might like to know the BBC Thrillseeker programme will launch through CountryFile on the 31st January and will have a searchable database of events offered by and for young people across the UK and linking with Outdoor Adventure Week [OAW2010] being held from 2nd - 11th April. The target is 2.9m participants, mainly young people and family focused. It continues to June 30th and may be extended. Any young people's group can offer to host an event for other young people and benefit from the profile-raising opportunities. We all know our young people can do it for themselves, and here is an example of the space being offered.

Comment by William Butler on January 29, 2010 at 12:06

Great to see some engagement around this key area of focus for the RSA. Mike raisies some really important questions (and I don't think its too soon to try to answer them). The most significant point is the importance of engaging young people with any work that fellows want to be a part of 'leading'. Consequently as the 'no longer young' we need to listen to and respond to the 'nothing about us without us' work that is a growing influence in the broader advocacy movement.

Comment by Tessy Britton on January 28, 2010 at 6:57

Hi Jonathan

Anthony Earl mentioned the youth project here:

http://rsafellowshipcouncil.ning.com/forum/topics/london-youth-project

Does the committee see the potential at this stage to grow your project into a national one? How could the Fellowship Council help join up, support, add ....?

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