Posts Tagged ‘youth’
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By Jemima Jordan 5th October 10
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Today might seem like any old rainy Tuesday, but let me tell you folks, it’s not! On this day only I’m back for one more little blog to mark the launch of our new campaign, Make the Team!
Make the Team is a project encouraging you and everyone you know between the ages of 16-25 to volunteer in football-related projects. In addition, everyone who volunteers will be in with a chance to win tickets to see Premier League Clubs! We’ve got professionals aplenty on board, from David Seaman to Kieran Gibbs, who all want you to get involved in amazing football-related volunteering projects like these!
The campaign launched on this very day and in order to make uber impact, we have some radio ads, featuring none other than the lovely gents who commentate on Sky Sports! Martin Tyler, Andy Gray and Chris Kamara, who you may know for hilarious moments such as this classic, spent a sunny and energy-filled morning in a London studio in Soho recording the radio ads that you will soon hear on Choice, Galaxy, Capital and XFM and I was lucky enough to be there to witness it!
I can tell you now, they had a lot of banter in the studio and although much of the football chat went over my head (Sorry football fans, I am embarrassingly knowledge-less), they knew their stuff like you wouldn’t believe. They were also upliftingly enthusiastic about volunteering and Make the Team project, with Martin Tyler saying ‘volunteering can give you skills and experience which could help you secure your dream job’ and Chris Kamara saying that ‘Make the Team is one of the best things I’ve heard about for a long time’.
So if you fancy getting involved, in the words of Andy Gray: ‘Sign up with v and be part of something big. If you’re football mad like me there’s hundreds of ways you can get involved.’And if you want to see more from the gents, scroll down for photos and CLICK HERE for a video from Chris Kamara
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By Jemima Jordan 19th August 10
Last Thursday was no normal day for the team here at v, oh no! Instead of heading to sunny v HQ to sit at our desks and make waves on Outlook, we made our merry way to Camley Street Nature Park in King’s Cross wearing slacks and hiking boots to do a day of volunteering! After a morning of mulching, weeding and tempering, we had a hearty lunch before painting some lovely quotes on boards to go up around the Community Garden! And just in case you don’t believe that we really did get down to the manual work, check out the pic of my tempering handywork on the right there >> 
If all that wasn’t enough to make the day stand out, the party animals in the group changed into their Thursday night finest to join our lucky competition winners at the vinspired Lake of Stars Fundraiser gig, featuring Tinashe and the Noisettes. Held in the beautiful Union Chapel in Islington, N. London, the gig was put on to raise money for the vinspired Lake of Stars music festival in Malawi, happening this October. Run completely by volunteers, the festival and the fundraiser gigs are an incredible showcase of exactly what volunteers can do when they put their minds to it! And I am absolutely sure anyone at this g
ig would agree that it was an incredible evening…New talent Tinashe blew the crowd away with a selection of smooth tracks from his new album ‘Saved’, before the Noisettes took the night to a whole new level with the sound of Shingai Shoniwa’s voice echoing through the eerie chapel setting. What made the night was not just the amazing raw talent, or the fact that we were all sitting in pews feeling a little overawed by the accoustics and our surroundings, but the fact that the whole night was run by volunteers to raise money for a festival that is making a huge difference in Malawi.
To find out more or to get involved, click here now.
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By vAdam 27th May 10
At the heart of Anatomy of Youth, the new report by v and Demos, is a set of youth portraits – each providing a snap shot of how young people are confronting the challenges and issues that face their generation.In his foreword to the report, David Willetts MP – recently made Minister for Universities and Science – said he ‘welcomed this publication which looks at the younger generation from a fresh perspective. We hear the voice of young people themselves’. David Willetts’s endorsement is particularly pleasing given his own work looking at the relationship between the generations, most recently in his book, ‘The Pinch: How the Baby Boomers Took Their Children’s Future – And How They Can Give it Back’.
To coincide with the launch of Anatomy of Youth last week we heard from v’s advisory board, v20, who produced insightful takes on the report’s key themes; digital identity, effective citizens, new families, changing communities, and climate change.
v is proud to act as a strong advocate for young people, so too are the many hundreds of organisations we fund and work with. A great example is ITV Fixers, which this week launched the London part of their national roll out. Fixers are young people aged between 16 and 25 who identify an issue of concern and with practical help and guidance, ‘fix’ it. The range of projects is impressive, as is the energy and commitment of the young people involved.
ITV Fixers is run by the Public Service Broadcasting Trust (PSBT) with the support from v through its Match Fund. Given the Trust’s unique relationship with ITV, Fixers are given a platform to get their voice heard by a large audience in the early evening regional news programme, and to follow their progress through the online channel ITV Fixers. Since its launch, over 11 hours of programming has been broadcast showcasing Fixer’s projects. A great assault on the negative perception of young people. And just one of the ways v and its partners are enabling young people to contribute to the causes and communities they care about, particularly those who are new to volunteering and those from hard to reach or disadvantaged groups.
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From festivals to living without power, v has made summer the time to give. The Summer of Give Campaign is offering 18-25 year olds all over England the chance to get a free ticket to some of the UK’s biggest festivals in return for just four hours of their time showcasing their talents. Volunteers can get involved by pitching to showcase a special talent on the bigvbus. Aspiring DJ’s and bands could hit the top deck of the bigvbus and play a warm up festival set while promising photographers and writers snap, blog and tweet the festival scene. Graffiti artists and dancers could even hold master classes on-board. For those who aren’t sure that they have a special talent, v has whole load of spaces for Promotional Volunteers at each Festival who will help to spread the word about volunteering and in return, will receive their festival ticket for free.
Festivals include;
★ Isle of Wight Festival on 11th – 13th June.
★ T4 On the Beach on 4th July
★ Relentless Boardmasters on 4th – 8th August
★ V Festival on 20th – 22nd August
★ Creamfields on 28th – 29th AugustFor those young people who want to save the world, protect the environment AND enjoy the madness of one of the UK’s top music festivals, v have teamed up with Coca Cola and RECOUP to launch the Live Positively Campaign. After a study found that packaging was the biggest part of a drink’s carbon footprint, v and Coca Cola have set up this project to educate and encourage everyone to recycle at music events (and everywhere else), by taking a more creative view of recycling.
On another eco-note, Npower and v have launched No Power Hour, a new campaign to encourage children to find alternative, fun, eco-friendly ways to spend their time, particularly during the sunny summer months. Npower are giving 16-25 year olds in Birmingham, Nottingham, Newcastle and Leeds the opportunity to get involved in a range of activities in local primary schools inspiring young children take part in a range of exciting, creative and outdoor activities.
And if none of that gets young people giving, they can still visit vinspired.com for a whole range of other volunteering opportunities this summer, including a special section for Volunteers’ Week (1-7 June 2010).
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By vTiger 27th May 10
v has always been about pushing boundaries, trying new approaches and injecting creativity wherever and whenever we can. This is particularly true of our approach to evaluation.We wanted to buck the trend of ‘post-mortem’ evaluation and heed the advice of experts, such as those at New Philanthropy Capital who advocate that “charities need to improve the way they measure, demonstrate and communicate impact”.
In the absence of a central approach to measurement and evaluation, v’s preference was for a model that would enable us to learn from our programmes, whilst they were still active, and make changes to improve the experience of our funded network and the young people they engage.
As an organisation committed to evaluation and learning v has applied insights from previous grants rounds into practical improvements for our most recently funded organisations, but by choosing a formative approach, we have gone one step further, providing the organisation with a rigorous and independent evaluation.
The interim findings of this process were launched this week, Formative Evaluation of v, The National Young Volunteers’ Service.
Overall the evaluation shows that v and its funded network are achieving notable outcomes, for example exceeding the targets set for it for the number of youth volunteering opportunities and supporting a positive force for change in the youth sector (p54). More significantly it identifies that we have engaged some of the hardest to reach young people. “There is strong evidence”, the report concludes, “that v funded volunteering engaged a “greater diversity and more socially excluded young people than is normally the case” (p1).
While there are successes to celebrate, the evaluation also indicates areas for improvement for v, its funded network and government.
v is taking forward the recommendations and has created an action plan to tackle the implications raised by the Evaluation report and we are committed to continuing to raise the bar in the provision of youth volunteering.
There is also learning within the report for our funded network, for the wider sector and for government and we hope they share our zeal for improvement. The detailed impact of v and its network (2008-2011) will be reflected in the final report in June 2011. We have a unique opportunity to take stock of what we have collectively achieved thus far and make every effort to deliver more.
Terry Ryall, v’s Chief Executive, commented “I’m naturally delighted by all the positive findings of what v has and its partners have achieved in just four year. But I’m equally excited about the areas of improvement for v and the voluntary sector, as we take these forward for an even better future for all.”
To download the Executive Summary click here.
To download the Full Report click here. -
By Jemima Jordan 20th May 10
Afternoon all,vJemima here!
Not to start on a sad note, but ’tis a sad sad day folks! ‘Why?’, I hear you cry! Well, my blog-reading chums, I am afraid to say that after 18 months of writing blogs for the wondrous world of v, that I will now be moving on from the v web team
(shed a tear people, shed a tear!).Sadly, I have decided to move to pastures new and have made the decision to go to … wait for it…the v Marketing team! I know it is a great distance of a full one metre away from my previous desk, and you may miss my ramblings about the National Express, but the blogtastic news is that you are going to get a whole new and exciting blogger who will taking over my role… He is fabulous and talented and full of blogging banter, and his name is Jon Ezaro! (queue round of applause!)
For those who haven’t guessed, this vogue-esque picture above is of me and Jon in our official, business-stylee handover, so now you can visualise for yourself!
So it is now time to go and practice my marketing lingo and try and drag myself away from my keyboard, but I bid you farewell and welcome Jon with Cup-a-soup style virtual bear hug! Look after him everyone!
vJemima
Oo and remember, that the deadline for No Power Hour, our awesome project about getting schoolchildren to energy-save, is TOMORROW! GO GO GOOOO PEOPLE!
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By James v20 18th May 10
It’s a testament to the giant influence and command the internet has on our lives that for the ‘Anatomy of Youth’ launch event seven young people have spent the afternoon locked in a basement frantically typing away. For those that haven’t been able to make it, we’re the ones in photographs looking pretty darn tired!We were all tasked with tackling different sections of the report, and it’s fallen to us to deal with the one that covers ‘Digital Identity’. I guess we were drawn into doing it as we’re both slightly 1337. Ste Prescott, another v20 member will join me on this blog, and for future reference anything in bold can be traced back to his giant mind. Just for reference, here’s a photograph of Ste, in case you want to chase him down a street at some point.
Ste - v20
Let’s start with breaking down the title of this section. What is a digital identity? Having read the report, and from our own experiences in the internet world (Ste is a web designer and James is Social Media Consultant) a digital identity covers a whole heap of online information, but it can be broken down into two simple types:
- Online profiles: the ‘Public Image’ we aim to project to the rest of the world
- User generated content; blogs, comments, status updates, reviews
I’m sure everyone that’s dipped their toe into the strange world of Facebook, or indeed adventured into the shameless self promotion of Twitter understands what a profile is. So for the sake of calling everyone who’s reading this a geek we’ll move on and address the concerns that come with ‘living online’ and having ‘digital identity’.
In a passing note, Jon (another v20 member) expressed a very interesting opinion in his blog “Changing Communities – The Disconnect”, he mentioned the sadness he feels that people are more invested in online communities – with individuals the other side of the world – than they are with their own communities. In a strange show of individualism, I’m going to throw out a 45% view. It’s true that we are disconnected to our local communities, but I wouldn’t say that this is a direct result of the development of online societies. Perhaps the breakdown of local communities is a result of the modern transience of families and the increased flexibility of employment. But let’s not get sidetracked!
Ste has dragged out two factoids from the report and expressed his points about them:
42% of 16-24 year olds claim to know someone who has been embarrassed about information that has been uploaded to the internet without their consent. This is pretty normal for most of us that are on Facebook, a lot of times when you sign in you’ll find yourself tagged in a bad photograph.. no one asked for your permission but it’s up there for the world to see.
60% of 14-21 year olds have never considered any potential future effects of posting personal details about themselves online. This seems to draw on the fact that we as ‘youth’ are invested far too much in the here and now, and not the potential ramifications that having this information online could bring.
The most pressing issue for us, is that young people – well in fact most people that are online – don’t realise how much information they’re giving away by being online. Facebook makes you agree to their terms and conditions when you sign up, but how many people actually read it?
The internet is now no longer a purely personal realm. Companies are researching their potential employees before hiring to make sure they fit with their businesses ethos, and a lot of people are falling foul of the internet police. Comments made in jest can lead to the loss of a job, as many political candidates in the 2010 General & Local Elections will testify.
A more worrying element is that our online profile is being monitored by a wide range of companies, some for marketing purposes others with potentially more sinister intentions. We’ll leave you with a worrying thought, the CIA now own part of Visible Technologies – one of the biggest social media monitoring companies in the world – through their investment arm In-Q-Tel…
Beware what you put online… in case it comes back to bite you!
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By v_tarik 18th May 10
Having written a post on this topic over on the Voicebox site I felt it to comment on this subject here. The ideas of a ‘Lost Generation’ is pivotal to attitudes towards young people presently. As the Anatomy Of Youth’s second chapter indicates, the discourse and far reaching implications of the fabled ‘credit crunch’ upon labour conditions present a massive challenge for young people everywhere. As social theorists have noted, there is a clear correlation between the state of labour conditions – influenced in itself by economic resonances – and social relations and thus the social order. This order, in effect, is skewed and the result? Society is taking it out on young people.This chapter addresses these discursive issues – the fundamental problems of which, lie in the favouring of older people over younger ones. There is a proven inequality currently in society. The detailing in the report first invites us to ask, then quantatively answers, why it is that young people should be helped.
The answer within this can be located in the future according to the report. As the report elaborates ‘this point in history is not a good moment to be young in the UK’. The far reaching affects of the slump will potentially cause massive cultural issues amongst this demograph in the future and thus is spawned the idea around the ‘Lost Generation’. The nation has been held in a situation where a lack of jobs, the cutting of hours and the arrest in broad hirings have resulted in a surge of university applications. So much so that 130,000 people had to be turned down.
This disbalance of the current social climate lies within the ideology surrounding social mobility as the second chapter of the report concludes. The newly formed roles and professions emerging in the ever changing economy cater to the skills sets of the youth. Young people now have the tools to really influence the societal structure, but it is employers who seem to be lacking the initiative to engage with this demograph. The report attempts to bring light to these issues whilst questioning the role of young people in our societal structure. Can employers cater to this generation? Is Britain prepared for these socially active, hyper connected, web savvy generation of kids? Does it want to?
I should hope so.
Take a peek at the report for a furthered response to the subject – it’s good reading, promise. Nice.
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By Emma v20 18th May 10
Being a member of v20 and working for the youth empowerment charity Envision I see and meet many young people that are active and effective citizens; young people that are volunteering, campaigning, starting their own projects and making a positive difference to issues they care about.Chapter 7 of the Anatomy Of Youth report explores young people and the trends and challenges around being an effective citizen. Today there are many more ways to make a difference as a citizen. Young people have many avenues to express their opinions and campaign online, young people are pursuing careers in social and ethical areas and many express their views on things such as fair labour through what they buy. The chapter also highlights the lack of connection that exists between young people and political culture. Young people feel disillusioned with politics and politicians. The report explains that young people’s apathy towards politics is now greater now than at any point in history.
For me the chapter throws up two main concerns. Firstly, whilst some young people are ‘hyper engaged’ as effective citizens there are others that are completely disconnected from both wider arenas of active citizenship and traditional forms of political expression. We need to make sure that efforts are made to engage everyone as effective citizens. Secondly, whilst it’s positive that there are an increasing number of ways to be an effective citizen, these need to be accompanied by traditional political citizenship. As Stuart White points out democracy provides us with the opportunity to change our society – if the next generation becomes disengaged from it there is a risk that it will only represent a narrow section of society. We need to recognise the power of government, use our votes and hold politicians to account.
To enable young people to be the most effective citizens they can we need to be inclusive in our efforts to continue to encourage and expand the many ways that people can be active citizens. This needs to be accompanied by traditional political citizenship. I think we need better citizenship education in schools and, as the report highlights, there needs to be a transfer of political capital to young people so they can become more involved with and excited about politics.
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By Faizan v20 18th May 10
Having read the first chapter of the Anatomy of Youth, “Perspectives of Youth” these are my thoughts.I am a rebellious lad who loves a good drink and causing some trouble, whether that’s getting into a brawl or smoking pretty much anything for a buzz! This is what the media says “Young People” like us are, but does that have to be who we are? We live in a society where we are constantly told who we are and what we are; leaving no space for us to decide for ourselves. Adults find it hard to comprehend that we are able to think and breathe for ourselves! They constantly sweep our opinions to the side, when the fact of the matter is that we are the generation who needs to deal with the problems they will leave behind! How can we get engaged in wanting to tackling these issues when 75% of us don’t believe we can influence change?
Just who are we? And what are we useful for? You have to deal with the calamity that has been left behind for you and your children, but you can’t do anything about it because you are “too young” and “too naive”. I am not sure about you, but I get sick and tired when adults talk to us so patronisingly and so knowingly. If they knew so much then why are we facing all these massive problems? They don’t seem to have the answer. I believe we all need to unite, irrespective of age, sex and race in order to come up with a solution. Adults say we are too young but one day it will be us who are the bankers, the doctors, the politicians – the people who will shape the future. So let us learn and let us voice our opinions and get our hands into molding the clay of the future.
I wish that the voting age will be lowered so young peoples views can be heard and expressed. But ultimately we have to consider if we will ever really be listened to? Even when we grow up, I believe the youth of tommorow will still be patronised and swept to one side, but this time it will be by us. Are we fighting a losing battle? Before we know it we will be “adults” and we will be one of them. In essence us and them… We’re not really that different. We both feel, think and laugh. Us, them, our children and our children’s children. What kind of democracy will we be living in if woman weren’t allowed to vote? What kind of democracy will we be living in if old people weren’t allowed to vote? What kind of democracy will we be living in if young people weren’t allowed to vote? I ask you, where’s the democracy?
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