|
|
Mind the gap!
Writer: Marloes Verhoeven
I heard a UN official say yesterday: young people why are you so are quiet? Speak up! And the room remained quiet.
Of course some young people are present at this conference, and they do say what they have on their minds. But it is not enough. Why is it that so many government officials and UN policy makers have so much time to speak and so little voices of young people, those who experience the situations of violence that we are talking about today, are being heard? Listening to all the spoken words yesterday, I was quite disappointed to realise that there was simply no dialogue.
They do their say, we do our say, but there is definitely no open dialogue; we're not really communicating.
Perhaps the group of people is too big, perhaps the organisation has it's reason for not involving young people, or perhaps they still do not know HOW to involve young people.
We know youth are different from the adults and we know that there is a great gap between youth and the elderly, youth and the police, youth and the authorities because of this. We have known this for many years now. So why not incorporate this knowledge instead of merely reproducing this gap?
Involving young people should be done in consideration of their specific characteristics. Young people are ambitious, energetic and eager to learn, but they are also quickly distracted, easily bored and often have little skills to speak out.
A conference such as this is not at all designed to involve young people. I saw some youngsters that were almost asleep yesterday during the speeches! And as for me, I sometimes caught myself tired of sitting and listening too.
If you want to involve young people you should teach them how to speak in public and encourage them not to be afraid. You should make sure sessions are not too long and have more activities of fun (not just performances by the youth themselves, but rather by good leaders). Also, trust young people by giving them responsibilities in the organisation (ask them how they want to be involved) and maybe even give them money, since many young people simply do not have the time to come, because they have to do their daily income generating tasks to take care of their family. Finally, give them the attention they deserve!
This conference in my opinion is just proof of the fact that despite all our knowledge, we still haven't learned how to involve young people and how to make the gap between young people and the elderly smaller.
During the Your City International Crime Prevention & Cities Summit, the Baobab team and the 20 winners of the competition are reporting live from the summit premises! Keep checking back for daily updates.
| |
|
SHARE YOUR VIEWS:
|
|
Currently no users have shared their views yet.
|
Login to post a reaction
|
|
Terms of Use | Disclaimer | Privacy Policy |
|
|
|
|
|
