New Malden’s Young People posted 19 12 05
Open a newspaper and it would not take you long to find stories and tales of young people running amok in
In New Malden the problem, as many see it, is as bad as anywhere. Teenage gangs roam the streets at night causing violence and intimidation at will, unable to be stopped by the police. To some locals we seem to be plunging into a situation of night time anarchy where decent hardworking people are unable to walk the streets at night for fear of attack or intimidation. Given this state of affairs I think many would agree with one commentator who said "The children of today have bad manners, contempt for authority …. show disrespect for elders … are tyrants, … and contradict their parents” [1].
In fact this last quote was famously attributed to Socrates by Plato over 2000 years ago, a point that maybe demonstrates that the problems of youth are not such a new problem after all, but indeed a challenge to society for literally thousands of years.
As a local youthworker and director of Christian Youthwork Project Oxygen, I do not deny that some young people engage in anti social and intimidating behaviour, but I do also want to understand the larger picture, to try to see what causes such social disruption and breeds a divided community in New Malden where the elders in a society turn on its youngers and the youngers in turn intimidate their elders.
This New Malden quest began over 12 months ago when a group of youth and community officers from across the statutory & voluntary youth services met with the police and community officers to explore the issues of local young people and what can be done to stop them misbehaving.
Through my conversations one theme has become increasingly clear, the decreasing provision of engaging facilities for young people. A conversation I held with one 16 year old during Oxygen’s Urban Nights project highlights the problem:
“There is nothing to do in New Malden, to do anything we need to go into
This young man went onto explain how many of his evenings are spent walking around the streets of New Malden bored with nothing or no one other than fellow young people to engage or interact with. Indeed the highlight of his week was coming along to the
One year on from the start of my quest I am convinced that the will exists for New Malden to become a great model for community cohesion and positive-social behaviour.
The challenge that lies ahead is not simply to make New Malden’s younger people better behaved, or to get them off the streets (that does not discourage anti social behaviour, but rather engender it in another form), neither is it about elder people in New Malden simply paying for free facilities for the young. Rather I believe that the challenge to New Malden is to become a place where younger and older people come together, engaging, listening and interacting with each other, growing in respect and understanding of each other. It is about creating places where young people can go to interact with each other and others. Where they can learn and engage with their community as well as contribute something back.
This journey towards a cohesive and respectful society may seem a long one for some, but all journeys start with small steps forward and seeing as we pride ourselves on being the “grown ups” , should these in fact come from us?
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[1] Attributed to SOCRATES by Plato in William L. Patty and Louise S. Johnson, Personality and Adjustment, p. 277 (1953)
Posted by richard @ 16:58 19th December 2005
