Another Inspiring Young Person

Last week I spoke of the inspirational young people in Surrey, some of whom were at our Celebration of Youth. I want to tell you today about another inspirational young man from the Netherlands - Boyan Slat. While diving in Greece at age 16 Boyan became frustrated by coming across more plastic bags than fish. Whilst many of us might just have said “ain’t it awful” and gone home to watch TV, he took a different path. 

Boyan researched plastic pollution and the problems associated with cleaning it up. Over the next few years he developed the passive clean up concept and subsequently got a team of 100 people to work on the Ocean Clean up project. The feasibility 530-page feasibility study report (authored by 70 scientists and engineers), indicated the concept is indeed a feasible method to clean almost half the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in just 10 years. To date $2.1M has been raised to support the project and Boyan Slat (now aged just 20) has led the charge to solve a major problem which the governments, environmental organisations, corporations and others had all failed to tackle.

I believe that there are lots of young people around Surrey also spotting problems and taking initiatives to make the world a better place. If you are a young person doing a project like this, or know of a young person who is, please do email us and tell us what is being done and why. We would like to create a collection of stories about young people doing fabulous initiatives in Surrey.

Here are Surrey Youth Focus we are thinking about how can we create the conditions in Surrey where we have thousands of Boyan Slats, working on inspirational projects to make a difference to the world. My challenge to you this week is:  How can you nurture the young people in your life to spot problems in society and go out and solve them?

Inspiring Young People

We held our wonderful Celebration of Youth event at Leatherhead Leisure Centre on Saturday. We celebrated young people’s achievements as well as the leaders, projects and businesses who have helped them.

The themes that came through for me were safety, belief and trust. Every one of us needs at least one person we can feel safe with, one person who believes in us and trusts us. A person we can turn to when the chips are down. A person who will hold us and tell us all is okay when life seems rotten. This is never more true than with young people who have experienced more than their share of difficulties from a young age. Some young people have been badly treated by those who are most supposed to nurture them. Others -  young carers - have had to spend much of their lives nurturing rather than being nurtured.

My challenge to you this week is: how can you nurture the young people in your life to achieve their full potential?

A huge thanks to all involved in the Celebration of Youth including our award presenters - The Lord Lieutenant of Surrey Dame Sarah Goad, the High Sheriff Mr Peter Lee, Surrey County Council Chairman Mr David Munro and Mole Valley Chairman Councillor Emile Aboud; Sylvie Blackmore from BBC Surrey for hosting; Leatherhead Leisure Centre for the venue; All saints Leatherhead for the refreshments; all the exhibitors and talented young performers; the Lord- Lieutenant’s cadets for their valued assistance; Unity Insurance UK & Councillor Tim Hall for their hugely appreciated  financial contributions; the Mayors of Elmbridge, Guildford, Reigate & Banstead, Spelthorne, Waverley, Woking and the chairman of Tandridge; the SYF trustees; the parents, family and friends of our young people. Phew, what a list. We couldn't have done it without you.

Finally thanks to my team members - Su, Kate, Alex and Karen - who have proved yet again the old adage that if you want something done, give it to a busy person.

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Once upon a time there were charities, businesses and public sector organisations. And then the world started to change. My predecessor, Mike Abbott, has talked and written about the blending of the sectors in the past. Charities are changing their business models to become “Social Enterprises”. Local authorities are spinning off operations to form Local Area Trading Companies or  Social Enterprises.

I saw the blending of the sectors from a different direction last week. We went to see Eagle Radio, based in Guildford. Eagle is part of UKRD group, a privately owned for profit company. However, their focus is on a lot more than just profit. They do a large range of activities to support and enhance the local community, including their “Big Community” – helping voluntary organisations to find volunteers with the right skills. And by the way for the last four years UKRD have topped the Sunday Times best companies to work for. Can anyone doubt the motivating effect that true Corporate Social Responsibility can have on employees?

Eagle's approach reminded me of an event that I attended the previous week where the question arose “What is a Social Enterprise?” I didn’t ask Eagle Radio whether they would classify themselves as a Social Enterprise, probably not as they never said so. But the issue as to what is or isn’t a Social Enterprise seems to bother people a lot. One of the reasons that this debate arises is because contrary to popular belief a “Social Enterprise” is not a legal form of organisation, it is a just a label. Companies limited by guarantee, Community Interest Companies, Charitable Incorporated Organisation – these are all legal structures. So why does it matter? It matters for two reasons. 

Firstly, communication. If two different people understand two different things by the same word or phrase, it often causes confusion. Secondly, it is important to have a legal structure that is fit for purpose for what you are trying to achieve with your organisation. Charities have more constraints on them than other forms. On the other hand, they also have advantages such as being able to access grants that businesses cannot.

If you are involved in any way in setting up an organisation or changing its structure then getting the legal structure right from the start is very important. If you don't have it, it is very important to get good legal advice. If you need professional help on this maybe you could try posting an advert on Eagle Radio’s Big Community. 

Variety is the spice of life?

I am thoroughly enjoying all of the different types of things that I get involved with in this job, I have always been someone who loves to get involved with all sorts of things. However, with that comes a challenge - figuring out how to best use my time to greatest effect. I could easily fill my diary three times over every week. So, to put it another way, I need to figure out what to say no to. A friend laughed when I said that I need to be able to say no in this job. She knows me (and my sister) well. “Good luck” was all she said, but the meaning was clear – not one of my strengths!

In the last week my activities have included – recommissioning of youth services event run by Surrey County Council, meeting with a group of other Infrastructure CEOs as well as meeting individually with three different charity chief executives, various not so fun admin issues, internal meetings on Communilab and our Youth Social Action conference. The week finished with an event on Social Inclusion organised by the Enterprise M3, the Local Economic Partnership covering the M3 corridor.

Fitted in between the activities I am  writing our three year strategy. The purpose of a strategy is, of course, to help guide the organisation to make choices over what it will and won’t do over the forthcoming months and years. Will that help bring me clarity about my priorities? Hopefully, if it makes sense.

My challenge to you this week is this: Are you clear about what you are trying to achieve in work or life? Are you saying “yes” to the things that will help get you there and “no” to the things that won’t? Of course there will always be grey areas – activities which could possibly bear fruit - but clarity about where you are trying to get will definitely help. 

Overcoming adversity

It was our AGM this week and we had a good turnout. Thanks in particular to our president Lord Baden Powell and our patrons The High Sheriff and The Bishop of Dorking for making time in their busy schedules to attend.

As well as the business part of the meeting, we had great talks from two young people who have both had very challenging life histories and have come through shining, a inspiration to us all. We were very grateful to them talking at our AGM. Here is a bit about their histories.

Shannon had a difficult start from a young age – her mother had a mental breakdown and was absent from home for months on end. Her father could not cope with parenting Shannon and her younger brother. Shannon was expelled from school and joined a gang at the age of 14, getting into lots of trouble with police and authorities. Later, she got a new boyfriend who was not in the gang and initially seemed nice, but later became violent after she got pregnant.  Then 3 months after giving birth, Shannon’s brother died in a car crash. Shannon developed extreme depression; however, after calling the police 13 times, she eventually found the strength to send her partner to prison.

Shannon found out about the charity called Straight Talking and applied for a job as a peer educator.  She was really nervous to start with, but they encouraged her to develop confidence and she has since developed many skills not only for work but for life as well.  She has been promoted twice. Her life has improved massively and she is a much better and stronger person - she knows her worth and believes that she can achieve almost anything she wants to in life.

Our other speaker, Dan Eley, had a very different set of personal challenges. He worked as a charity worker with impoverished children in Latin America for two years before a diving accident in the Colombian Amazon left him paralysed from the chest down two years ago. Dan spent a year in hospital, fighting for his life and facing up to the enormous emotional and physical challenges of being severely paralysed. During these difficult times he had the opportunity to meet other people with similar disabilities who had overcome extreme adversity to go on and achieve great things in life. This inspired him to pursue his dream of starting the Dan Eley Foundation to deliver apprenticeship-style training schemes for children living in poverty in Colombia and Latin America.

Since its inception in 2012 the Foundation has funded and implemented three six-month apprenticeship training courses in conjunction with a partner charity in Colombia and is currently in the process of funding its fourth. Despite being in a wheelchair, Dan travels to Colombia twice a year to interview candidates for the course, visit graduates in the work place and help run clinics in the slums. The foundation also runs schemes for young people in Surrey.

Both Shannon and Dan have dug deep and found incredible inner strength to overcome their challenges. They have shown amazing bravery in the face of adversity. And again they have shown bravery in sharing their challenges with the world, talking openly about their difficulties as well as their triumphs.  They are an example to us all not to put up with the status quo. My challenge to you this week is a little different. Imagine that you have the same levels of bravery as Shannon and Dan. Imagine that you have the confidence to speak out about something that you normally keep quiet about or make a major change in your life to become happier. What would it be? 

The Age Divide

The issue of affordable housing and the greenbelt came up several times this week. Too many people, houses too expensive, no space left to develop. As a society we are building up to a crunch point. For those on the minimum wage, how can they afford to live in Surrey? How can young shop workers, cleaners and postmen get a decent place to live. Even for new graduates, with a an average starting salary of £22-25k, it’s a number of years before many of them can get close to a mortgage, and even then for the smallest of properties.

How much longer is it going to be before the richest 1%, mostly bankers and people with inherited wealth, are the only people who can afford more than a one-bedroom flat in Surrey? How are we going to survive when newly qualified nurses, teachers and even doctors can’t afford to live within reasonable commuting distance of Surrey towns?

In my neck of the wood, Waverley is consulting on its’ draft local plan. No one wants green belt to be built on, few people are delighted at the prospect of development in their own vicinity and we all want to continue to receive the public and private sector services that we always have. We want to buy our home ourselves, or for those of us lucky enough to be on the property ladder, we want our children and grandchildren to be able to buy a comfortable home in Surrey.

The good news is that innovation is more often spawned from difficult situations than when everything is going smoothly. As I learnt when helping my son to research the Victorian era for his history homework, the great Victorian Era sewers which are still in use today were developed in response to the Great Stink of 1858.

Solving the housing problem may require innovation in social systems, in housing design, in economic policy. We need as a society to think bigger, to think laterally, to make sure we are addressing the right problem. For example, asking the question “how can we do more with existing sites?” opens up a wider range of thinking than “where can we find land to build new houses?” Recently I heard someone suggest that a piece of land with a public toilet in Farncombe could be redeveloped to include some flats as well as public conveniences.

As a society, we need to shift our thinking. My challenge to you this week is a big one: how can you make a contribution to help young people be able to live in comfortable housing at affordable cost in Surrey? Can you think of some different questions to ask? Can you think of some new ideas? Are you ready to embrace Victorian ambition? 

Sporting Challenge

I have always loved doing sport and now enjoy supporting my kids to do likewise. As a family we love cycling and walking together and despite having qualified for Vets teams for a long time I still get my hockey stick out once a week for a casual game of five-aside with a group of friends. So as the theme of sports and activities came up several times this week it seemed an appropriate subject for my second blog.

Sport can have so many benefits in a young person’s life – building friendships, keeping them fit and healthy, encouraging them away from anti-social behaviour and building resilience, self worth and self-belief.

In case you missed it, an excellent report from Sport England on The Challenge of Growing Youth Participation in Sport was highlighted in a newsletter by our colleagues in Active Surrey.  A must read if you would like to help increase young peoples’ participation rates in sports. One of the findings is that the supply of sport tends to reach those already engaged.

An organisation trying to address this is StreetGames, who I met with this week. They support a network of projects across the UK including Surrey designed to help build capacity for sports close to home in deprived areas, through a programme called Doorstep, and they are looking to do more in Surrey. If you are involved in sports events in deprived areas, then StreetGames may be able to help you with a package of training, free resources, fundraising advice and more.

In Surrey it is easy to think that everybody can afford to do sports but this is not always the case. We had a phone call from a lady looking for monetary assistance for a talented teenager who has been selected to train with an elite sports team 50 miles from her home, but her parents were struggling to pay the travel expenses. This is doubly hard when the vast majority of your peers in school or sports clubs don’t experience the same financial issues.

Another group who often find it harder to access sporting activities are disabled children and young people. Luckily for many across Surrey and Hampshire they have access to the wonderful schemes and play centre run by Challengers. I first heard of this organisation a few years ago from a friend who raved about their services. So it was with a personal and professional interest that I visited their purpose built facility in Stoke Park, Guildford. I wasn't disappointed - beautifully designed to provide a fun, safe environment for kids to be active in - with happy children playing inside and out - I can see how the staff and environment combine to significantly enhance the lives of children and young people with disabilities and their families.

I dream of a Surrey where all young people are active and involved in sport regularly. I have a challenge to you. Can you personally do more to help encourage young people to be active or participate in sports? Whether it is running a project in your professional life, encouraging a child to walk to school or volunteering at your local football team, it all helps towards a more active generation of youth in Surrey.

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