Young People and Social Change

My young people drive me to be the best version of myself.? They challenge me to be more tolerant, hopeful and creative. They make me want to create a world good enough for them – for they are precious and deserving of it.

As I stood yesterday at the #RightToFood rally in #Belfast, I noticed a group of youths who’d made placards begging our government to stop starving people to death.?

And as I stood yesterday at the #RightToFood rally in #Belfast, another group of young people in my community hosted a stakeholder engagement day to plan for the year ahead in their club.?

And as I stood yesterday at the #RightToFood rally in #Belfast, my group of #youngwomen messaged about their toy drive for Women's Aid Federation Northern Ireland – they were working on their Saturday afternoon, sat in one of their bedrooms, planning for social action.

And as I stood yesterday at the #RightToFood rally in #Belfast, the youngest elected Councillor in N. Ireland’s history – Lewis Boyle of the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland - was hoofing it around #Glengormley engaging his constituents. ?

All of these young people facilitate social change - advancing the human condition in, existing and new, critical directions.? Yet their political engagement is discouraged.? Dismissed as being idealistic, ill-informed and unrealistic in their calls for social justice, they’re treated as adults in waiting with little self-efficacy but, they are in fact at the forefront of challenging the social, political, and ethical blind spots of our age.? And they’re best placed to do it – more than half the world’s population is younger than 25 years old.?

These groups of young people are genuinely radical agents of change, and the need to validate youth-led action in positive citizenship has never been more important. ?While few will disagree with the last sentence, participation is conceptualised variously as ideological, cultural and legal, and its translation into action is mediated through a particular context – that of the adults around them.

Adultism is as an orientation that is based in a web of cultural norms that continually and ubiquitously affirms and reinforces the superior position of the adult relative to the young person.? We hear it in the corrupting power of language – adults are simply acting in the best interests of the young person

I am one of these adults. As a youth worker, I must challenge divisive, manipulative and exclusionary practices.? I must complicate discourses that categorise and homogenise young people.? The young people in the St. Peters Immaculata Youth Centre and the Frank Gillen Centre are often excluded from political and civic decision-making processes.? We try, as youth workers, to cultivate a laboratory of democracy in the club.? We work to enfranchise young people by supporting and facilitating their involvement in political and social decision making, promoting human rights.?

Youth work is a counter-hegemonic practice.? The emancipatory, educational concept of youth work draws directly on the critical pedagogy of Freire, and it means the dialogical component of our work must be intrapersonal as well as interpersonal.? Youth workers are aware of our vocation as allies to young people, and are privileged to have a consciousness-raising role, but must be careful that our work is relational, collaborative, and negotiated by young people. ?While I can force a recognition that they have a right to participate, it does not follow that they will do so.?

I’ve been reading about the Foucauldian power analyses. Power is not a uniform force; it is fluid and enacted within networks through everyday actions.? It can be held by an individual or collective; be organised or spontaneous; and can uphold or resist current social norms. Evidently the type of young people with whom I am most comfortable are resisting current social norms, and I am grateful that my young people coerce me into avoiding adultism.

And so, I return to how young people facilitate social change.? When the adults in their life take a rights-based approach, truly critical dialogue can grow social support networks; human, financial and social capital, and opportunities to be civically engaged.? Society needs to accept the importance for young people to exercise their agency, and cultivate avenues for them to do so – or stand back and let them lay that path for themselves.?

Young people can tackle inequalities and injustice with a creative hopefulness beyond the scope of most adults.? They can create a world good enough for all of us – for we are precious and deserving of it.