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Tuesday Mar 31, 2009
life behind the statistics
I’ve recently discovered that life for young people in Britain isn’t nearly as glamorous as Skins might have us believe. As the journalist for YouthNet’s new Lifetracks website (so new we don’t have a URL yet), my first job along with Multimedia Editor Chris C has been getting out and meeting some of the people behind the stats. It’s been an eye opener, but not in the way you might expect.
It’s made me realise how stark the difference is between the media’s view of young people and the reality. We obsessively glamourise both youth and violence in this country - a winning combination for advertisers, newspapers and TV script-writers - but to be honest, the young people I’ve met have not seemed particularly dangerous - or particularly glam. People forget being young often means being poor – earning the minimum wage or less; eating crap food (pizza anyone?); never having any credit on your phone and being bored stiff because you can’t afford to go out in the evening. Youth clubs with peeling paintwork and blaring TV screens are the only place to meet if you don’t want to spend money.
And, of course, the ‘current economic situation’ means moving on up is a tough prospect. At the Regional Skills Event in Bolton, a woman working for Connexions told me she’d only got 12 jobs to offer - unless you want to go in to the army, which is on a major recruitment drive at the moment. About half of the event was taken up by army gimmicks – you could make your own dog tags, try on a bomb disposal suit or wave an machine gun around. There were even chances to get up close and personal with a three metre-long bomb.
The story was similar at a drop in centre on the south coast (but with less military hardware), where it seemed being laid off was the order of the day. One lad had even been told he was no longer required at Morrisons, despite supermarkets proudly trumpeting that they’ve got jobs to offer when everyone else is having a hiring freeze.
We met several people who saw dealing drugs as a kind of rite of passage to get themselves out of debt. One girl told us she had become addicted to cocaine at the age of 12, running up huge drug debts while her teachers thought she was hyper from eating too many jelly babies. In order to clear the debt from her habit, she was forced to deal for another few years, even after she got clean.
Of course, being a journo, I can’t help focusing on the most extreme examples to keep you reading. But they’re circumstances worth bearing in mind next time you read a statistic about our knife-wielding, happy –slapping youth and wonder what’s happened to make them like that.
On top of these social issues, the world young people now have to navigate is hugely complex and rapidly changing. They’re now asked to seriously consider what job they want to do and take qualifications to suit - at the age of 14. As well as A Levels and GCSEs, both of which are changing, there is now the option to take an apprenticeship, diploma or raft of other vocational qualifications for jobs that 30 years ago did not require so much as an O Level. By 2015, young people will have to stay in full time education until they are 18. But at the same time, the economic crisis means it’s the toughest time to graduate – ever.
The more I find out about the expectations placed on the shoulders of young people in the UK, the more it becomes apparent that life for them is a wildly confusing and challenging experience. Obviously, a website alone isn’t going to resolve the deep rooted social issues which have caused young people to be demonised, but at least we can provide a few navigational tools.
Posted by Emma Rubach ( 11:01 AM ) Link to this post Comments[1]
I recently spoke at an event (http://tinyurl.com/d9lzpg) where they are trying to do exactly this and it might be a good model to explore here...?
Peace
Posted by DK on April 01, 2009 at 10:45 PM GMT+00:00 #