TM Youth web site....

And this was TonbridgeBlog's attempt to appeal to a younger audience in the early days of the site in the late summer of 2006. Did it work? Probably not judging by the total lack of anyone under the age of 20 who turned up at the meeting, with the exception of my son of course who was obviously dragged along there!

Having attended the Tonbridge Civic Society's talk on Youth development strategy for the town and borough I came out feeling that there was a real effort going on to reach out to the young people of the borough of Tonbridge and Malling. But....hang on a minute.... where were all the young people? Do they not read the notices in the paper or pick up the society's flyers or look at the notice boards in the Angel Centre to find out when relevant meetings are taking place? .....Well frankly no they don't, and why should they? they are too busy being young and, often, rebelious. They look at the internet and You Tube and MySpace and long for i-pods and the latest 3 mobile phone. Robert Styles, the top bod on developing of youth activities on TMBC, did a splendid job of delivering a speech about the council's activities in this area (and they are many and diverse) and the two girls of six form age who sit on the youth forum also peformed very well in telling us it from their point of view. But they were grammar school girls and the problems in the town are generally not caused by grammar school girls. There may be some who do, but generally speaking grammar school girls, and boys, do not go around tearing up seats at the park, throwing shopping trollies in the river, and progressing to sticking needles in their arms to inject drugs, and robbing old grannies! Noticeable at the meeting was the "us and them" attitude of some of the older age groups present at the meeting, as though some how youths were a separate part of society and kind of in the way of normal cosey life. It was voiced for example that some felt intimidated by youths in large groups skate boarding on the unofficial skate park that is Sainsbury's car park. Why did some of "them" just hang around when there is far more to do today than there was in their day, when people found their own entertainment?!
In a nut shell "youths" is a hateful word, because we should only be refering to "young people" (and they are a very large and diverse group of people.) In my view the programme only scratches the surface unless it finds a way of tapping into the really run down housing estates and schools which serve these areas. They need to talk to young people on their level, who understand their problems. I was very encouraged by the effort and commitment which seems to be being put in but dismayed by the lack of interest shown by the poor turn out for what is a crucial issue, and the 'attitude problem' displayed by some older members of the audience who clearly either never had a proper youth or, more likely, have long since forgotten. Comments below please....
If you are a young person who has "bovvered" to read this far then you may also be interested in the TM Youth web site which explains things far better than I ever could because it's written and designed by young people....