Ógra Shinn Féin attends Youth Exclusion seminar

Monday August 07, 2006 20:05

by Colleen - Ógra Shinn Féin

An Ógra Shinn Féin delegation attended a youth exclusion seminar in St. Mary’s University in Belfast on Thursday 3rd August. ‘Generation X’ looked at a number of issues affected the youth today. It was attended by a number of young people and a large number of people working within the youth sector.

The purpose of the conference was to begin to trigger a debate and discussionon how working class communities can begin to effectively tackle the whole issue of youth exclusion and participation.

Generation X - Youth Exclusion - Finding The Solution!

The ultimate aim of the seminar and wider programme of Participatory democracy programme is to identify and implement a coordinated strategy to tackle youth exclusion.

After attending the seminar spokesperson for the Ógra Shinn Féin delegation, Barry McNally said, “The whole issue of youth exclusion is not a problem associated exclusively with today’s generation youth- it goes back a lot longer than that.Such schemes such as the Participatory democracy programme, currently being rolled out in West Belfast is one method of tackling the issue of youth exclusion. Such programs in other countries, such as Sweden, who work with the age bracket of 4-18 years old, are working. Some suggestions coming from the young people in Sweden were formulated into legislation and so this is one progressive initiative in order to combat youth exclusion."

"Also Government investment both from the London and Dublin governments is also needed in order to help communities to combat the issue of youth exclusion along with involvement from the young people themselves."