THOUGHTS
I think a lot, I can't help it. You'll find out soon
enough.
(normally when doing something mundane)
Respect?
(UK) About a week ago. I saw a bloke washing some graffiti off a wall on a website, and claiming to start a campaign of 'respect' across the country. 'That's nice of him' I thought. I like it when a decision gets made to 'change things' for the good like that (can you sense the satire in my tone yet?).
First up I applaud a few things.
Raising the issue of teenagers bored outta their space-cadet minds 'needing' something that can be 'theirs'… (even though they probably have no idea what they actually want yet). I'm also stoked at the launch of a 'Children's Commissioner' set to shuffle £300million (or however much it was) of spare change the Government found down the back of the sofa over Christmas, into new and existing projects scattered around the country. Its a dream come true I'm sure, for some many communities and campaigners for 'youth stuff' nationwide.
However, my beef starts with the local authorities who need to:
a) jump up and down excitedly and claim as big of a chunk of that cash as they can for their community and…
b) know how to effectively spend that cash when they get it!
For example, in my area… there is no such thing as a play parks officer, a sport & recreation team or any form of local youth representative working in the interests of young people on the council. Yes, there's numerous youth service people, and yes the are various community volunteer groups and individual councilors that work tirelessly to steer projects. But as I've found, if there isn't a man at the top to co-ordinate things then very often the people at the lower rungs of the ladder are left struggling and strangled by masses of procedural nonsense and red tape.
I'm thinking the first thing my area will do is to appoint a 'bod' that will co-ordinate what goes where and for whom etc. This is if they are smart and actually 'care' about young people. My area doesn't. It claims it does, but clearly (from anyone that lives where I live) they don't.
Sadly I don't see my council fighting for more cash than its allocated, and sadly I don't see them, spending the time needed to research fully how they can best implement that cash. I'm also really, really hoping to be proven wrong here.
Actually a little wave of panic/concern came over me when I heard about this new project that'll clean up our cities. Because I'm fully aware of how lots and lots of money can be easily wasted and 'eaten up' by this massive machine that we're all governed by on a local level.
I need to read the report fully… but it looks long and a bit boring… it'll be a challenge to sift through all the waffle and figure out what exactly they mean to do, rather than what they state they can do.
Fingers crossed I guess, hey?
