Education By Choice - 09/09/09

The first `Belfast East` workshop after the summer is part of a longer programme with one of our partner organisations: Education by Choice. I think we were all a bit nervous about this session in particular: a radio recorded discussion on the government`s strategy for children and young people! 16 girls and 8 boys with ages 14-17 shared their opinions on areas such as health, poverty, environment, and employment... a very heavy topic, so we brought a surprise: Charles, a hip-hop singer from Zambia! He talked a bit about his music, and then he offered a performance. He also took notes of YP`s remarks during the session which will be used for a hip-hop song: our evaluation on the day`s outcomes. There were smiles, they all loved Charles: such a good start! The difficult part was yet to come but I had complete confidence in the facilitators: Gordon Hewitt from the Di-verse Poets group and Darren Ferguson, manager of Beyond Skin. It`s not easy to engage the YP in the conversation so it`s all quite slow for a while. Skye Bompas, our photographer steps in, trying to help... After the luch break one of the YP suggested that we split the group into two: boys and girls: `we`d find it easier to talk! `, said one of the girls. Darren left with the boys and and the rest stayed with the girls. It was so much better already but then we started feeling embarassed: it`s unbelievable how unrealistic the ideas in the government`s document are! Their plans of doing more organised trips to the forest to help with the environment or to encourage YP to keep using libraries and museums etc. don`t have any relevance whatsoever to our group. Even after returning to the office we`re still talking about the day`s session: we were amazed at how deep some of the YP`s ideas were:
`These are not separated areas (e.g. health, poverty, environment...), it`s all inter-related`.
`We cannot be treated as children in some circumstances and as adults in others, whenever it suits the government! `
This proved to be a very revealing session, for all involved!