From the chapter ‘Variety‘
Mahamed Hashi, Founder of Brixton Soup Kitchen and New Beginnings Youth Provision
London has one of the most diverse populations of children and young people in the world, and almost a quarter of all Londoners are under 25. If our capital city is to meet some of its big challenges, including a younger, growing and diversifying population, increased pressure on housing, infrastructure and public services and the uncertainties of the post-Brexit economy, then young people are its greatest asset, and they simply have to thrive!
I have worked closely with young people for over 20 years. I’ve been a youth worker, elected local councillor, charity trustee, founder of a soup kitchen, a youth empowerment organisation and a mayoral adviser. Most of this work has been in the most deprived areas of London, and so I have particular insight into the issues that really affect young people physically, mentally and in defining their life aspirations.
With such rapid changes around them, I have seen that young people thrive best when they have opportunities to learn from peers outside of their ‘echo chambers’. The more they mix with people ‘not like me’, the more they see limitations others have assumed about them, and the more they can counter such prejudices and release their amazing potential by making informed decisions. For example, 23-year-old Niko Omilana, a hugely popular YouTuber, came fifth in the 2021 London Mayoral election, with over 50,000 votes.[i] He enjoyed huge support from his online followers (3.6 million on YouTube alone), many of whom were not old enough to vote, but nevertheless bombarded social media with his campaign material, pictures and messages encouraging those who could vote, to vote. The energy and broad support behind Omilana’s campaign delivered a very credible number of actual votes, but it highlights how much is lost to democracy, and therefore our potential as a nation, by the exclusion of young people, like millions of his engaged followers, from the voting booths.
But not allowing our teenagers to vote is just a symptom of a bigger issue: how little faith we have in their capacity to be responsible. In fact, to me, the reality is less about their capacity and more about adults’ fear of not being in control.
Young people have shown over and over again that they can be trusted to make their own decisions about their future. For example, currently there are 369 elected members of the UK Youth Parliament. They earned their seats with votes from over half a million young people across the country.[ii] Voters and candidates are all between 11 and 18 years old.
Nor do adults trust young people in the world of work. Although young people can take full-time work from the age of 16, they must be at least 18 to enjoy the employment rights and regulations that adults do. They can also be paid less for doing the same work as a person over 18.[iii] All this is outrageous.
If I could change anything to benefit children and young people, it would be to lower the age of employment to align with entering secondary school, and providing structured apprenticeships and internships as part of that process.
The topic of youth employment has always been controversial (although not as controversial as youth unemployment), with people reaching diverse conclusions. The range of arguments stretches from the idea that work benefits young people through the development of essential life skills to the idea that working too early sets young people up to be exploited by unscrupulous employers who will ultimately use and abuse them as unskilled, unappreciated cheap labour.
For me, the transition from primary to secondary school was one of the most significant points of my childhood. It coincided with my body starting to change through puberty, the re-evaluation of my social status within my friendship group, adapting to the new, and very different, secondary school environment, and a whole new ‘self-awareness/consciousness’ about this new me.
Current UK law states that children can only start full-time work once they have reached the minimum school leaving age (which is defined differently across the four UK nations, but approximates to close to your 16th birthday). Once they reach this age they must be paid through PAYE (pay as you earn), but ‘adult’ employment rights and regulations won’t be applicable to them until they reach 18. It is also worth noting that in England a young person must be in part-time education or training until they are 18.[iv]
Although I understand the protective nature of these restrictions, I feel we must learn to trust and have faith in the brilliance of our young people as well as their fierce ‘2023’ intelligence.
Child labour laws initially were brought in to protect children from being exploited by work that interfered with their ability to attend school, that could cause them harm or deprived them of their ‘childhood’. However, I feel this mind frame was reflective of a different era. Today work for teenagers can be the gateway to a different, better life, through gaining new skills and life experiences and choices, to bringing motivation to find purpose, to being an aspiration alternative to being groomed by gangs, earning through ‘county lines’,[v] and generally being seduced by criminals and their lifestyle.
In London, 38 per cent of children (700,000) live in relative poverty.[vi] Across the UK, 459,000 16- to 24-year-olds are unemployed,[vii] which hugely impacts the hopes and aspirations of each of these people.
When I was growing up in the mid-1990s, having a paid job during your secondary school days was almost a universal experience. My first job, at the age of 16, was as a youth worker and football coach at my local youth club. I absolutely loved it and now (perhaps consequently) run my very own youth organisation. I was fortunate! I had attended the club from the age of 10 and became a peer leader when I was 13. Unbeknown to my youth worker at the time, it saved me. By engaging me early, allowing me to feel valued as a young person, like I was an important part of something bigger, and laying out a clear pathway of visible progression, he had unwittingly diverted me from the destructive path three of my closest friends had embarked on.
By the time I was 16 I had progressed to regular work, earning a staggering £10.50 per hour; my three friends had almost completely stopped attending the youth club. While I was still walking to and from the youth club in my football shorts and shin pads, they had started wearing £700 Stone Island jackets and £500 Prada shoes … (brands I’d never even heard of at the time!). However, the real change dawned on me during that year’s Summer Splash, the youth club’s annual summer project. The project itself, and especially the trips to the theme parks, was by far the highlight of our year. I remember climbing into the coach and seeing the three of them standing on the roadside. I turned to them and said, ‘Hurry up so we can get seats next to each other’, to which they replied they weren’t coming. I was completely shocked. I asked why and they simply said they had ‘business’ to take care of and couldn’t afford to miss any calls. At the time, to me, they were talking complete gibberish, but looking back on that moment, with the understanding I now have, I realise that despite their age, they had already lost their childhood and no longer felt they could indulge in such ‘childish’ activities.
As teenagers grow into young adults, they need to know that there is a place for them in the world and be helped to find it. Currently outside of education they have few options and almost never feel supported by adults to do anything other than further education. This, I believe, leaves them extremely vulnerable to negative outside influences that ‘pretend’ to support their independence and the pursuit of their dreams. Like my three ex-friends were so influenced.
Children and young adults need adults to support them and help them navigate that route to fulfilling their potential. I recently asked a group of young people from Brixton what they needed from adults. The conversation was within the context of a consultation around youth violence. They said they wanted a positive presence from adults when they were in need. The example one young man gave was when he had been approached by a group of boys who took his phone at a bus stop. He explained that this was witnessed by at least ten adults who all ignored what was happening; some even walked away. This was horrifying to hear, especially as I had a very similar experience aged 15, which ended in me being stabbed four times. I remember sitting on the top deck of the number 159 bus, the flesh on my arm hanging off and dripping with blood as a group of 11 boys ran off the bus. I looked up and noticed four adults sitting just three seats in front of me, each of them looking out of the window, feigning interest in the dark and blank sky. I remember how alone I felt at that moment! To hear this young man recounting his almost identical experience 21 years later was soul destroying. He continued to explain that he felt that many young people didn’t understand the value of adults in their lives because they didn’t actively see or feel their influence. We have to find ways to change this.
My way to make a change that would help adults to help children and young people is through introducing a diverse range of apprenticeships and internships that would combine class-based learning with ‘on the job’ experience (with limited working hours and with guidance from expert adults). It would be the equivalent to being in part-time education or employment, reminiscent of the GNVQs introduced in the early 1990s, to provide experience and education relevant to working life. This would provide a springboard to cultivate their boundless creativity and embody their courageous nature to give hope that their dreams can become a reality. It would also solve many of the societal problems that adults struggle to get their heads around, because they never interact with or get to know young people they are not related to. Part of the scheme would utilise professional and community mentors to create an opportunity for bridging the gap between adults and young people.
The isolation of the different generations and the echo chambers within generations need to be broken if this country is to thrive. Young people need to be welcomed to participate in broader society and not be seen as a threat, because without such opportunities some will become just that, and all will continue to lose the ability to learn, feel valued and find their real place in the world. Children and young people are too amazing to let that chance continue to fall between the gaps in society. Structured, integrated apprenticeships and internships can be part of the solution.
Notes
[i] LondonElects.org (2021) ‘Final results: GLA 2021 elections’, www.londonelects.org.uk/sites/default/files/2021-05/Mayoral%20Final%20Results%202021.pdf
[ii] BYC (British Youth Council) (no date) ‘Elections’, www.byc.org.uk
[iii] GOV.UK (no date) ‘National minimum wage and national living wage rates’, www.gov.uk/national-minimum-wage-rates
[iv] GOV.UK (2015) Child Employment, www.gov.uk/child-employment
[v] County lines’ refers to the practice of city-based drug dealers using young and/or vulnerable people to move, store and sell drugs in towns and rural areas.
[vi] Hirsch, D. and Stone, J. (2022) Local Indicators of Child Poverty After Housing Costs, 2019/20, www.endchildpoverty.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Local-child-poverty-indicators-report-MAY-2021_FINAL.pdf
[vii] UK Parliament (2023) ‘Youth unemployment statistics’, Research briefing,16 May, House of Commons Library, https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn05871