Soler et al. (2014,p.75) defines that the young people are in trapeze, trying to perform “triple somersault” without any safety net or any support due to the structure of the welfare systems in Southern Europe. We agree that, the young people have difficulties to not only participate but reach out the opportunities in their countries. At first glance, often this issue is considered by the youth workers or the NGOs that they do not want to engage in the activities because they are simply not interesting for them. But, we argue that, the issue is way deeper and uprooted in the structural issues linked with welfare system because the young people do not have means or ways to participate.
As we have explained in previous chapter, we would not explained the definition in detailed under this chapter of the Denied Youth Citizenship, however, we will address the issues through this strategy paper targeting the activities of youth grassroots and youth NGOs. Denied Youth Citizenship model considers the family as the safety net of young people, puts the young people in race in every level of their life from education to employment.
Denied youth citizenship characteristics are :
- Safety Net is depended on the family
- Young person is not considered as an agency of today but future
- Youth Trajectory is considered linear from childhood to adulthood
- Lack of social safety net during the unemployment
- Competitive nature of education
- Lack of vocational education to facilitate the labour market entry of young people
- Higher drop-outs from the education
- Focuses on the demand-side (employeers) rather than supply-side(young people)
- Reaching out to social benefits depended on the income of the family rather than individual
The arguments rises from this characteristics such as, if the families are not able to support the young people what happens? The answer is that the intergenerational risks of poverty is continuous to be persistent and the social mobility in the social ladder is not possible for young people. We argue that, even though the social welfare system is exists in the countries involved in this project, the social welfare system does not able to go up in the social ladder unless that the young people are the best of the best due to competitive nature of reaching to benefits and lack of social support systems in the countries. As a result, the young people cannot participate or engage in meaningful education according to their choices or wishes rather than what they can reach. In this chapter, we explain that what can we do as NGOs to tackle with these issues from implementing awareness raising issues, campaigns and informing young people about their opportunities.
According to the findings of our study, the social capital i.e. social networks, helps more to young people to engage in employment rather than the social welfare system. As the young people are dependent on their families, the social networks such as friends and acquaintances give them more reach to the opportunities than the state provides.
Next is that the knowledge, the young people do not aware about the existent of the social schemes or they do not know how to reach out these subsidies, benefits, or scholarships due to their high bureaucratical processes. Therefore, they retract from the possible involvement in education or employment. In each country involved in the research, there is a housing subsidy, though, reaching out the housing subsidy requires the young person to engage in a bureaucratic process. Though, they do not have enough knowledge or capacity to navigate in this process.
Next is the skills, the young people are either overeducated with the lack of skills required in the labour market, or they do not involve in the studies that they find meaningful. In example, they enter the labour market, they see that the work is not rewarding, they retract and involve in the education as a refuge rather than gaining new skills to engage in a meaningful job. As a result, they become overeducated, and the human capital is lost which can be valued in the labour market. In Italy and Turkey, this issue is highly prominent as “Everybody should study university” understanding, leads to the deepening of this issue.
Next is the information, the young people do not have enough information to reach out the mobility programs due to lack of language skills, lack of opportunities in rural areas or lack of financial resources. In the study that we have implemented, it has been seen that the majority of the young people who has been abroad, was able to do so through the mobility programs. As the limitation of the study, the involved youth was from the beneficiaries of the organizations, that situation might be more visible in the overall youth population. Therefore, there is a need on increasing the knowledge of the young people.
In this aspect, we have developed 4 sets of strategies to work with young people to increase their knowledge, skills, social capital and capacities to navigate through the challenges that they face during their lives in Southern European countries. In this section, the strategies are focused for the public organizations, youth grassroots and youth organizations to engage with young people.
Here you can access to each set of strategy by clicking the links :
- Increasing social capital of young people
- Capacity Building of Young People
- Awareness Raising of Young People
- Youth Information
References
Soler, P., Planas, A., & Feixa, C. (2014). Young people and youth policies in Spain in times of austerity: Between juggling and the trapeze. International Journal of Adolescence and Youth, 19(sup1), 62–78. https://doi.org/10.1080/02673843.2013.823552
