A citizenship project set up in Britain is working to equip troubled students with an understanding of how to make democracy work for them and gain the skills required to take part in public life.
Youth Act! is a new initiative run by the Citizenship Foundation, an adaptation of a similar project run by the Washington-based charity Streetlaw.
London-based project manager Carrie Supple says: 'Young people are often seen as part of the problem in what is increasingly being portrayed as an uncaring, violent and divided society. But our research into youth social action highlights the fact that many young people have ideas and a sense of responsibility about changing the world around them.'
To enable them to act on those ideas, Youth Act is designed to give young people a voice and then show them what to do with it. Secondary and tertiary school students aged 11 to 18 are asked to come up with ideas for tackling a problem in their school or community. As well as identifying issues of concern, they are required to state achievable goals. Their approach to the problem must bring about some level of structural change, such as influencing local authority or school policy. This has enabled students to learn how to navigate their way through the systems and mechanisms that provide the framework for civil society.
Once the prospective participants' idea is approved by Youth Act!'s steering group of external experts (comprised of young people, educationalists, local councillors and others) on the basis of feasibility and appropriateness, each school-based group works collaboratively, with an adult mentor, to put their idea into action. It all takes place outside school hours. Students receive training every fortnight, which combine political awareness with skills development, specific issues-based learning and opportunities to speak with MPs, community groups, police, local authority councillors and officers.
Youth Act complements the Education for Citizenship curriculum, which is now compulsory for 11 to 16-year-olds, and meets the criteria for its three broad strands; social and moral responsibility, political literacy and community involvement.
Colin Moorhouse is a community police officer who is working with one of the schools in the Youth Act programme, Northumberland Park in the London borough of Haringay, as part of his work with the Safer Schools Partnership. For him, Youth Act is a way of engaging young people in social change. 'At our first meeting, the group talked about crime because it is something that has an impact on their everyday lives. They focused on street robbery. They chose a theme that had particular relevance to them, mobile-phone theft, and why there's so much under-reporting to the police.'