OPINION: Next generation ready to receive the baton
Howard Williamson is vice-chair of the Wales Youth Agency and a
member of the Youth Justice Board howard.williamson@haynet.com
Tuesday, May 6, 2003
Youth policy has become a hot topic for many nation states, especially those in central and eastern Europe.
The Council of Europe has played a significant part in establishing the values that need to underpin youth policy, as well as instituting a review process of national youth policy.
I have been associated with the council's youth policy work for some years. Beyond the professional challenge of this work, there is also the personal dimension - those you meet along the way. For some years now, there has been a caucus of youth researchers, of around a certain age, who have contributed intensely to the work of the council's youth directorate in terms of research, training and policy. We have become increasingly aware that we are growing older and have, so far, struggled to find suitable people to follow in our path.
That is why I mention Strasbourg. For me, it was a wonderful week. The many strands of my involvement with the council seemed to suddenly come together in a matter of a few days.
Within minutes of arriving, I was invited to a game of football by an Irish man I had met at the Students' Forum 2000 in Prague and another (the first Lithuanian I ever met) I encountered in Budapest in 1996. The story flowed from there. A young Dutch guy was there, planning a training course.
A young British woman, whom I tutored on a social science training course in Hungary in 2001, was in my working group. There was a working group from the Balkans. One participant was a young Bulgarian woman who had been in my student group in the Czech Republic only five weeks before.
A woman from Croatia had been on my social science course in Moscow last September. There was even a Slovenian woman who had set eyes on me for no more than 30 seconds about a year ago.
Suffice to say that I knew almost everyone there, although they were attending for different reasons. I came home feeling that there was now a strong possibility of generational renewal and that others were now taking up our baton.
The high spot was meeting again a young man from Romania, now well established on the circuit. Six years ago, he had arrived in Budapest for an information society symposium.
It was his first international experience. I had been the first person he spoke to. We both remembered our 20-minute conversation, but until that second meeting, I was not aware that it had changed the direction of his life.
