sOMETHING TO BE HOPEFUL ABOUT

Depending on who you listen to, I may or may not still be classified as ‘young’ – I no longer qualify for cheap rail travel but the Young Fabians continue to welcome me with open arms! Young or not, I have had the privilege of working in youth affairs for the last 4 years, most recently for the national youth volunteering charity v and prior to that, at YMCA England. We hear a lot about apathy in the national press and yet I have been continually inspired by the energy, creativity and resilience of young people that I have worked with.

 

At v, I met a wonderful young mother called Shaz who had started volunteering at the local Citizens Advice Bureau – Shaz was younger than me and had already taken quite a few knocks. She was bringing up a daughter on her own but had been supported by the local Sure Start centre which had helped organise her volunteering and she was gradually re-building her confidence and sense of self-worth. At YMCA England, I also had the pleasure of meeting Toni, a young girl who had been living at Stoke-on-Trent YMCA. Toni had the opportunity to visit Ghana in 2006 and was struck by the plight of those, particularly young people, who were living with HIV. When she came back to the UK, she started to develop a campaign that would raise awareness of HIV/AIDS, and also tackle discrimination – her efforts were recognised last year when she was presented with a Sheila McKechnie Award by the Prime Minister. We hear a lot about ‘hope’ at the moment and these stories add flesh to the bones – they have helped me understand what we really mean when we talk about hope.

 

It is the responsibility of political leaders, not just to talk hope, but to construct a just world which offers hope to the many, rather than the few. In thinking about the challenges that lie ahead, it is absolutely essential that we listen to the voices of the young, both in this country and abroad. It is also imperative that we hear from those young people who have not experienced the benefits of globalisation – those who have never been abroad on holiday, who do not have easy access to the internet, who have not been to university and who are unlikely to ever own their own homes. It is the place of the Labour Party in particular, to keep investing in services that will benefit the most disadvantaged, particularly during a recession. Children’s Centres, supported housing and apprenticeship programmes – these will matter even more over the next few years.

 

At CSM, we have started to think as many others have, about ‘re-wiring the global economy’ and what this might look like. For a non-economist, this is a rather daunting theme and yet we all, as global citizens, have something important to contribute to this debate. Fundamentally, this is a discussion about the kind of world that we want to live in, and the hope that we wish to pass on to future generations. It is no coincidence that young people are some of the most active campaigners on the issue of climate change – we need to stop selfishly living in the present and start to imagine a world that will genuinely offer hope. In that vein, it is my hope that CSM will unleash some ‘prophetic imagination’ and articulate a truly progressive vision of equality and justice for all.