By Rob Pearce, Director Renaisi
And the depressing stats keep coming. Unemployment in the UK is now at its highest level since 1994. 1 million young people are now out of work. What a waste of extraordinary talent. Since the summer there has been much gnashing of teeth about ‘what to do’ about young people in our inner cities. Why is it they trashed their own communities? Is it most of them are criminals hell bent on destruction or gang members at war with the police? Of course why they did it is very complex and goes beyond simplistic explanations of thuggery and ‘pure evil’. Because of this much news print, academic journals and Council meetings (never mind the blogosphere!!) continue to be filled with people trying to understand why and what to do about it.
But of course what most people want is some action. In that vein the one blog on the riots that struck a chord with me was called ‘lessons from across the pond’ by Gerald Chertavian, founder of the American ‘not for profit’ Year Up (www.theopportunitymovement.com) (I must confess at this point that we visited Year Up in New York earlier this year so I was already a great fan). I live in Hackney and, like many, had the slightly surreal experience of watching live pictures on my TV screen, via a helicopter, of the street a few hundred yards away from my front door. So to read Gerald’s view, and to know a little about Year Up already, was quite illuminating and to be honest quite refreshing. His analysis of why was particularly interesting. He points to rising inequality, inadequate training and high youth unemployment coupled with an economy increasingly demanding ever higher skills from youngsters…sound familiar for those of us in east London? Uncanny isn’t it? But equally important is what he is doing about it.
Gerald’s big thing is opportunity. You have to provide young people in our cities with opportunities and where there are barriers to opportunity you have to help bridge the divide or help provide pathways through them. His ‘Year Up’ programme (www.yearup.org) does precisely that by working with employers to fill their skills gaps with talented urban youth – connecting economic justice for young people with economic prosperity for business as they say. Year Up’s success is reflected in its rapid growth. They are now delivering in 10 cities across the United States with impressive results getting young people into real well paid jobs (not unpaid short term internships!!). Gerald’s clarion call to create an ‘opportunity movement’ is certainly one we should heed here in east London. Of course I’m fully signed up. But what now? We need less talk and more action!
We should start of course where the opportunities are. Here in east London there are signs that it is Tech companies that are leading the charge for growth. The Coalition Government’s Tech City seems to be turning from a bit of a ‘mirage’ into something a little more tangible as the demand for developers etc accelerates as local companies grow and new ones move in. And of course there has always been significant demand from the big boys in the city where technology is the lifeblood of business and financial services. But will local talent fill these vacancies? Will a young person on the Wenlock Barn estate see their future in these businesses? All the evidence suggests that they have the talent and the aspiration but because of where they’re from they rarely get the chance. The divide between the expectations and needs of employers and the skills of local youngsters is too big.
We need to do something that opens up these opportunities and helps employers realise that they have the talent they need quite literally on their doorstep. We need to convince them that it makes good business sense to invest in local young people to build their businesses. And we need to provide an intensive and high quality training programme for local young people from low income families that gives them the technical and ‘work ready’ skills and knowledge employers want at fair price. Doing that means “economic justice for young people and economic prosperity for business”.
Renaisi and Hackney Community College, with support from Cisco and the Tech City Investment Company, are working to create an east London version of Year UP focussing on jobs in the tech industry, creating opportunities for local young people and delivering the talent local businesses need. Of course the UK is different in many ways to the US but the problems to be solved are very similar as are the principles governing what works.
So, I also propose we start an east London opportunity movement right here, right now. Tech City Apprenticeships is our contribution. What’s yours?
