1,000 UK Youth Hubs
Give them space, revisited.
(GBR) In the past 15 years the UK government has sold nearly 34,000 sports pitches in England. Even allowing for new ones being built, the overall number of pitches has seen a 45% decline.
Shopping centres are cracking down on the mere presence of young people. By banning teens from their premises through stereotyping and criminalising anyone wearing hoodies.
The government has also introduced laws to tackle anti-social behaviour, some of which make it
illegal for young people to simply congregate in groups. This is part of their ironically named RESPECT agenda.
A few years ago I wrote an ebook entitled ‘Give Them Space’. In my research, I tried to get a figure on how many youth centres there are in the UK. I contacted many national youth organisations and no-one could give me an answer or even hazard a guess (I can’t be alone in thinking that’s just wrong?). From my own professional and personal experiences, I know more youth centres are being closed than opened.
Young people today simply don’t have any space and is porbably one of the reasons why they are populating virtual worlds and online platforms.
Now, Children’s charity 4Children and The National Youth Agency are lobbying the government calling on them to create 1,000 youth hubs across the UK which ‘would allow one-to-one and small group work, and provide a range of services including IT facilities and study support’.
