(The Nationalist, 16 June 2007)
It takes many things to build a cohesive human community. One of those is for young people to have positive, up-building, and creative outlets for their spare time and energy. It is wasteful and frustrating for them to have nothing to do when not involved in school or school-related activities.
In Northern Ireland, with a population of 1.6 million people, there are over 2,000 registered youth groups, with 171,000 members, 22,000 volunteer leaders, and 370 full-time paid youth workers. More than two-thirds of these groups are faith-based, that is, related to a church in one way or another.
It is impossible to calculate how much good such groups do, how much harm they prevent, how many lives they influence in ways that are positive and helpful. But it can surely be said that society would be a poorer place without them.
That’s the positive side of the picture. Part of the negative side is that some parents give their children a lot of money each week, and ask for no account of how it’s spent. Are they afraid of their children? I think they are. Also, many parents mindlessly repeat the mantra, ‘There’s nothing for young people’. The truth is that there’s plenty for young people. The mantra is just a lazy cop-out; it’s truly amazing how people allow such clichés to do their thinking for them. If people open their eyes and look, they will find facilities for young people around them.
Each week, in the parish where I serve, we publish a bulletin which lists many youth activities in and around the parish. These are referred to orally each week. But some parents still say, ‘There’s nothing for young people,’ and are surprised when you point out what’s there. All they had to do was read the leaflet in their hand.
Some time ago, I was in a secondary school talking to fourteen- and fifteen-year olds. They complained about the lack of sports facilities. There was nowhere to play football, the boys said. I asked them to look out the window of their classroom. In front of them, a minute’s walk from the school door, were several hectares of playing fields, perhaps four pitches in all. Also, there are publicly-owned swimming pools in leisure complexes about 3 km. in either direction. And there are three youth centres within a radius of perhaps 1 km. But mostly they didn’t use those facilities. It hadn’t occurred to them to look; they had picked up and repeated the mantra, ‘There’s nothing for young people’. They had come to believe it, despite the evidence, and it had become an excuse for doing nothing. I thought of what George Bernard Shaw said, ‘Youth is wasted on the young.’ What a pity, when they could have had such an enjoyable time, building friendships, acquiring new skills, and learning to think of others.
Recently I attended a performance of the play The Wizard of Oz by primary school children. It was excellent. What was so good was to see the children relaxed, confident, outgoing, and clearly enjoying their roles as actors or singers. The teachers who organized it were nearly all young, in their twenties. It was great to see them, too, so purposeful, committed, and happy in their work.
Life is there for the making and taking. We can sit down and moan, waiting for someone to do things for us, or we can get off our bottoms and make something of it. It’s over to us.