The young people of Lee on Solent have their youth club back, so tells the evening news tonight. But it could have been a very different story...
The cuts have had a huge effect on all of society but particularly young people, and over the last two years I have faced redundancy three times and somehow managed to survive, but had a job change as a result of streamlining services.
The youth provision in the area was commissioned to local charities to deliver and unfortunately there was simply not enough money in the pot to stretch to Lee on Solent.
But when has money ever stopped anyone from doing what they believe in?
By making enough noise and causing enough fuss, and sticking up for what I believe in (young people!) we managed to secure the building - save it from being abandoned. This was only possible due to local councillors getting on board and shouting our case in the right places and to the right people.
A local community group provided a background to support the project and apply for funding to deliver youth work from the building.
A local councillor gave £1000 from his devolved budget to allow us to renovate the building and buy much needed resources.
Young workers volunteered to give their time in attending meetings and running a consultation with local young people through the Gosport Youth Council. They chose furniture, artworks the walls, and tidied the building - as well as sitting GCSEs and A Levels!
The local college provided support in giving us a group of students to paint the end hall and freshen up the building - simple things like sorting out board games and cleaning the cupboards.
Last Friday we had the grand opening for our new youth centre, and we had support from lots of local people and the charity I work for as well as our mP and the local councillors.
This was a long process, from start to finish about 8 months in the making... But it goes to prove that when in need, a community can pull together and produce something remarkable. The part we all played was small in the scale but will hopefully reap benefits for hundreds of young people and the local community, in giving a safe space for young people to access youth workers. Through this process all I did was spend money on nice things and do lots of cleaning and removals. However, being thanked publicly by the local community was truly humbling and made me feel like my time was not wasted - the hours I spent volunteering, after a long day at work and then heading off to a brick built hut to make a safe place for young people, all that work was valued by the local community. I have played my part and made a positive impact in the community in which I live, through working with young people in partnership with adults and supporting those young people to become active citizens - giving something back to their community. Does this all sound familiar?
It should do.
Over 100,000 adults do this every week, for one of the largest co-educational charities in the UK, who provide nearly £5m of public service to the UK by training volunteers to give them the skills to work with young people or support the process. A charity which I happen to be a trustee of, and whose work I support implicitly.
So on Friday at our big launch, when I was asked why I did it, what compelled me to spend so much of my time creating this youth centre and bringing it back to life.. I answered "because I'm a scout".
www.scouts.org.uk/join
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