Why should young people engage in politics?

Politics can often feel like something which is far removed from everyday life, and something which most young people don’t easily relate to. Yet if you’ve been a youth worker for any stretch of time, you’ll understand that youth work is political with a small ‘p’. It’s very much about engaging young people to enable them to make positive decisions for themselves as well as giving them the skills to be able to interact positively with the world around them. So inevitably, the issues that most affect them in their daily lives will be discussed and addressed in the course of youth work. And that’s the crux of it. The issues that most affect people in their daily lives are precisely what make up politics. And different parties with different world views feel that they have the answers to how they can solve the problems of the day. So encouraging young people to engage in politics is about giving them a voice, and helping them to understand and debate problems and issues which are important to them and their families.

What I’m finding is that I’m seeing young people become more and more politicised and prepared to fight injustices they feel are taking place in the world. Whether that’s around cuts to youth services and youth provision here in the UK, where young people recognise the value in good youth work and knowing where to go when they need information, advice and guidance and are kicking back at centres being closed and services being dismantled, or whether it’s through the “Occupy” movement and the injustice they see regarding bankers’ pay and bonuses, and the sacrifices they see other people (the 99%) being forced to make through redundancy, unemployment and financial hardship.

Over the past year I’ve been involved in the Choose Youth campaign to save youth services across the UK. It’s been interesting and inspiring to watch young people take a vital role in the middle of this campaign, and create a collective voice, so loud that it was almost deafening at times! But the battle is a long one, and young people do need support to keep going. Initial enthusiasm and energy can dissipate quite quickly and perseverance is needed to keep going if a campaign is to be successful.

I work with a group of older young people in a drop in held by a town centre church. Last week I sat down with a group of about 5 or 6 young people who had plenty ideas and without really getting onto the subject of politics myself, young people were very quick to say what they thought. One young person asked me what I thought of David Cameron. The young people are from Reddish, which is a Labour area. I told them I was a Labour Party member, and standing as a council candidate and one of the young people said “Good!” Although ideally, I would prefer to use a less partisan approach, I realised that being honest and open with young people is a big part of my own youth work style, and this conversation will allow for further discussions about politics in the future. I hope that through this brief introduction, I will be able to push and challenge them to see other points of view as well, and encourage them to understand more in the coming weeks about why people from different backgrounds and experiences have different ideas abut how to solve the country’s and the world’s problems.

For now my young people are happy to make a video of interviews to present to politicians, interviewing other young people at the club around how they feel about lack of youth provision in the town, as well as running activities and events to raise money to fix the church roof.

So why then, should young people engage in politics? My answer? Because they already are, and they didn’t even know it!

Emily Hewson is a Youth worker from Manchester