Youth participation
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12 February 2015In December 2008 young people in Greece provided the whole world with food for thought in relation to youth participation – as the preceding photograph shows. Yet this was not a peculiarly Greek tragedy. The images which flashed around the globe were familiar to all of us – armadillo-like riot police confronting angry youth in a riot of destruction aimed at established structures – political and corporate.
Reports explaining the background to these events were also familiar to readers across the globe. Inter-generational mistrust; high levels of youth unemployment; loss of faith in the existing political institutions: all were cited as drivers behind their desperate behaviour.
Yet only the month before Barrack Obama’s presidential campaign showed how young people can be successfully mobilised by a mainstream political party. The Obama campaign’s innovative use of technology and its effective harnessing of youth networks were identified as key factors in attracting young people. But other factors were equally important – amongst them his status as an ‘outsider’, his skills as a communicator and his ability to empathise with the disengaged – in galvanising so many young voters.
It seems that these two recent events neatly summarise two of My Generation’s key focal points relating to the Youth Participation theme. The first is a shared understanding of ‘the problem’ which can transcend our national boundaries. The second is an insight into what we have learned about successfully tackling this.
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