Our children need a place to hang out
• I have lived in Kentish Town since the mid sixties. I chaired Acland Burghley Governors in the 1980s and two of my, now grown-up children, went to the school.
I was also chair of Camden Youth Committee in the eighties. I read Lara Jakobs’ piece in last week’s CNJ with tears in my eyes (Help us resist the lure of the streets).
What a wonderful, brave young woman to talk so honestly about drinking on the street at 14 and the misery of young people growing up in an inner-city borough in the 21st century. I could not believe that the youth centre at Acland Burghley is now shut.
As Lara puts it so clearly “Islington youth clubs became to learning-based and people stopped going”.
Young people need to have somewhere to ‘hang out’ in a safe environment. Information and advice about careers and local evening classes were nearly always available in Camden’s youth clubs.
But that is different from ‘a learning based’ environment. That surely is for the schools.
The first cuts to the youth service in Camden came shortly after the Inner London Education Authority was abolished by Mrs Thatcher. Sadly the cuts have continued under Mr Blair and then he wonders why young people are unhappy and bored and so sometimes behave badly. Asbos are not the answer.
Janet Richardson
Winscombe Street, N19
• Councillor Diedre Krymer’s picture of opportunities for young people in Kentish Town is exaggerated and dishonest (Work for teens, Jan 19). It doesn’t reflect the reality for most teenagers, many worried parents and the wider community. Her response is astonishingly complacent.
The projects she listed only provide youth workers for a few hours a week. It’s a drop in the ocean when compared to the number of teenagers looking for something to do.
The projects depend on short term funding and don’t even know their future after April.
It makes us angry when the council talks about young people and ‘tackling anti social behaviour’ in the same breath. This isn’t like discussing how to stop dogs fouling the pavements! We’re talking about the impact on generations of young people of growing up spending night after night hanging out on the streets.
We don’t have one youth club in the whole of Caversham. What exactly are the “competing attractions in Camden” for young people she refers to and how many can afford them?
The streets are an increasingly harsh environment. Boredom and alienation, fuelled by a culture of drugs and violence, fills the vacuum. These are our kids, they deserve better and the fourth richest country in the world can surely do better than this!
We need fully funded and permanent youth clubs to provide young people with a safe place to go in the evenings. Somewhere that provides an alternative to the streets, that offers them encouragement, support and a range of activities and experience.
We don’t think this is utopian – we’ve been campaigning for a Caversham Youth Club for years and we won’t give up. The ‘cost of failure’ can be weighed in terms of loss of life and growing despair amongst young people. Put that on your ‘balance sheet’. It’s a price our community cannot afford.
We expect a commitment from elected politicians to fight for these resources. With an election due in May I hope candidates from all parties will address the issue. What’s the point of politicians who just paint a rosy picture and refuse to stand up for what we need?
Alan Walter
chair. Peckwater Estate Tenants and Residents Association
Aborfield, Peckwater Estate, NW5 |
