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Youth @the Centre Programme
It has been a busy period for our Youth @ the Centre Programme. We wanted to fill you in on our conference and other projects.
New Logo
As part of our effort to engage young people in our Youth @ the Centre programme, we are really pleased that two young people have designed our new logo to reflect the importance of including young people while reflecting their diversity and individuality (the dots). Community Matters would like to thank Ruhul and Joelly from Leaders in Community (LiC) very much for their creativity and time, and Page Media for helping them to develop their initial design.
Building young people’s capacity to lead in community organisations
Over the summer, we have been working with Leaders in Community, a youth-led community organisation based in east London. This organisation, which is made up of over twenty 18-25 year olds, is seeking to provide more active and positive roles for young people within their local community. We have been working with them to develop their leadership and governance skills so that they can be more effective and engaged in their local community centre.
This is just one example of the capacity building that Youth at the Centre can provide and can help young people take a more involved role in your community organisation. If you have young people interested in this or would like to know more, please contact Nina Burich at Community Matters.
Community Matters Conference – ‘Leading Communities Together’ Youth-led Workshop
One of the aims of our Youth @ the Centre programme is to improve and increase the engagement (involving young people rather than just providing activities for them) of young people in community organisations. Nothing says it better than young people themselves. We were thrilled that four young people from Leaders in Community (LiC) – Moybul, Minara, Najia and Hannah – could come to our annual conference to share the importance of engaging with young people and inspire other community organisations to do the same.
Photo of LiC 4 members
As promised, the workshop was engaging, fun and inspiring. As such, and as not everyone was able to attend, we wanted to share some of the outcomes of the workshop with our members more widely.
Leaders in Community
With few opportunities for young people over the age of 18 and frustrated that they had so little say in their local area, LiC was established a couple of years ago. This youth-led organisation aims to empower and include local young people through a range of support and activities that encourage other local young people as well as local people – including residents, the police, and the community centre – to work together to improve opportunities and cohesion in their local area.
After explaining their organisation to delegates, LiC worked in small groups with delegates to discuss current youth activity among other community organisations. This revealed a range of opportunities for children and young people from general to specific activities, and it was clear that community organisations are striving to respond to local needs of children and young people.
Barriers in leading communities together
Although there was some discussion on the active engagement of young people (youth forums, conferences and consultations with young people), the discussion later in the workshop highlighted some of the barriers that community organisations faced in engaging with young people as well as providing activities for them.
The barriers to engaging with young people varied. Many were commonly shared barriers – such as funding, negative perceptions of young people and not knowing how to engage or maintain engagement of young people. However, some reflected local variances such as language barriers and cultural differences as well as difficulties of other groups such as local authorities and trustees.
LiC discussed these barriers with community organisations, highlighting that some of these barriers are shared by youth-led organisations, but also providing some solutions and ideas.
Funding: LiC highlighted this as a shared challenge, but reminded everyone that giving young people opportunities to govern and actively participate in a community organisation is free and only takes time and understanding. LiC discussed some of the activities they have planned that did not cost money – like talking to trustee boards about gaining access to green spaces for their activities.
Fear of Young People: LiC also experience this as a barrier and struggle to engage with some young people. However, they talked about the importance of having opportunities to positively participate. This provided a different and more positive path than gang culture for them and gave them the opportunity to make a contribution to their local area. They reminded the group that the majority of young people just want a space to go and the opportunity to be involved and that community organisations should not let down all young people because of a minority of young people.
Communicating with young people: In discussing how to communicate with young people, LiC talked about how not know what opportunities community centres offer has been one of their main barriers. Although other organisations had used adverts in magazines, leaflets, and posters, LiC suggested some other methods that would be more direct and effective: such as going and talking to some young people about their community organisation and telling them the opportunities that are available as well as using web-based network sites like facebook.
Making a Pledge LiC and Community Matters are very dedicated to improving and increasing opportunities for young people to be actively engaged in community organisations to lead communities together, as this brings benefits to all:
- For young people: important opportunities to be included, empowered, confident, skilled, experienced, and involved or giving back to their local community
- For community organisations: more inclusive of local young people and representative and responsive to local needs, provides opportunities for young people as new members and leaders for the organisation
- For local community: more cohesive, inclusive, and positive.
As such, we asked all participants to make a pledge at the end of the workshop. Here are just a few inspiring examples:
- To involve the older age group using the centre to come along to the youth club evening to engage with the youth
- To have a young people’s committee
- To Volunteer on a local youth group
- Ensure these events and activities are supported with sufficient funding to enable them to continue
Participants: Look out in the post for a reminder of your pledge!
Here to help
A lot was covered in this short session, but the Youth at the Centre programme is here to help community organisations engage with and provide positive and safe opportunities for young people. Get in touch with Nina Burich at Community Matters to talk about your organisations needs, barriers, and/or aims or go online and see our ‘Youth at the Centre’ group on Facebook!
Community Matters would like to thank LiC for travelling to our conference and delivering a great workshop. We were pleased that they got the opportunity to talk to Phil Hope, former minister for the Third Sector, about their organisation.
LiC with Phil Hope, previous Minister for the Third Sector
The last word goes to LiC:
“It was a pleasure to be asked to come along and having older people listening to us…so thank you on behalf of LiC for giving us such a brilliant opportunity and enabling us to disseminate the LiC model further”
Want to know more about how parliament operates and how to get your voice heard at a national level?
A new programme, Parliamentary Outreach (non-partisan programme) is providing workshops for all ages in London, Yorkshire and Humber, and East England. This can include a tour of parliament as well if you are based in London or can pay for your transport yourself. If you are interested, please contact Nina or parliamentaryoutreach@parliament.uk
