Engaging young people in social change
Thursday, November 19th, 2009
Had an amazing conversation with Duane Melius www.wemakesense.org and Naomi Jane www.live4wd.wordpress.com last week; one of those conversations which is dangerous, because it has in it the infectious momentum of a good idea you find yourself powerless to resist!
Duane was a little frustrated. Expelled from school as a teenager he’s a classic rags to (not-quite-yet)-riches social entrepreneur! In brief, he turned his life around when he cofounded Sense Magazine for young people. He’s worked with young people and seen them take positive strides in life as a result of his projects. But his frustration came from knowing that there are other plenty of organisations keen to apply better models to their youth engagements but which did not know how to. I shared his enthusiasm and Naomi wasn’t far behind. How could we combine our resources, experience and contacts to create a broader movement of improvement within youth engagement for social change?
And so began the arguments! What is “youth”? Is it a homogenous group or a group of overlapping tribes? How much of a strategy for engaging 20 year old university students can be applied to engaging 15 year olds who have dropped out of education? What is “engagement”? Is it inspiration, hand-holding, awareness raising, getting young people to do what you want, getting young people to do what they want? And what role do I play as the person working with young people? Am I one of them or do I lead them? Do I get them to lead themselves? What about mistakes? Do I let them make them?
Well, what if it’s all if the above?
We got excited!
We are now creating a practitioners model for engaging young people in social change. One that acknowledges the variety and homogeneity within youth, the spectrum of ‘engagement’ and the tension between adult leadership and youth empowerment. What do you think? As Social Enterprise Day dawns, join the discussion around how we engage this next generation.
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