Times of Change, Times of Opportunity: Confidence in Young People?

Prologue

With this blog, I wish to engage in a dialogue with you on how the voice of young people can be strengthened in Europe and the world in the next years. This is, after all, the main reason for why I have dedicated a big part of my life to volunteering and work for youth organizations at local, national and European level, and why I have accepted the nomination for running for the position of President of the European Youth Forum.

My first engagement with youth work started at the age of nine, when I joined my local scout group. After that, I have been engaged in a variety of different organizations like the youth organization of my political party, The Nordic Association of People Hard of Hearing, the Young European Federalists in Finland and of course, the Finnish National Youth Council Allianssi, through which I ended up in the YFJ:s Council of Europe Affairs Commission, the Advisory Council of the Council of Europe and finally two years ago in the European Youth Forum Board.

When youth work permits, I dedicate my time to studying political science, reading, walking and fishing in the beautiful archipelago of my home country and spending time with my family and friends. Having lived in Italy, I also have a keen interest in Italian history, culture and language – and use every possible opportunity to visit the country.

I believe fundamentally, that our generation has a big responsibility meeting the challenges facing our planet today, and I know that the European Youth Movement has the opportunity to bring forth real change. We should work for this change together and remember to enjoy, be inspired and motivated while doing it.

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Confidence in Young People?

Swedish election campaign continuing intensively. Three articles about young people in the newspaper today-one about difficulties party political youth organizations are experiencing in arranging debates in schools and another on how social media is used to mobilize young people to vote.

In Finland, party political youth organizations have had trouble entering schools since a long time-the reason is said to be the over politicized 1970s, when schools became ideological battlegrounds between the right and the communist left. In Sweden today, one of the problems seems to be the challenge from the xenophobic Swedish Democrats-many schools don't want their pupils to be subjected to their rhetoric, and thus they invite the mainstream parties but not them. Other schools have banned all parties, in the name of equality. To make young people interested in elections and politics is of course not only solved by letting parties in to the schools, but in the same time, it is an astonishing vote of no confidence for young people to try to "protect" them from politics in this way. Don't blame young people for not being interested, if you don't even give a chance to make an informed decision , is my message.

Social media is, of course getting more and more important, and it would be interesting to know how much they affect voter preferences. The new channels of communication are valuable. In the same time, the way politics is communicated needs to be rethought-whether it is through social media or more traditional ways of communicating. Very often, the message is over simplified in meaningless slogans, becoming absurd fragments of ideas rather than more comprehensive h on how society should look.

And the third piece of news? That was that 99% of Swedish young people between 10-18 believe that their future will be a good one. That is, at least, reassuring in a way!

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About Me

"That punctual servant of all work, the sun, had just risen, and begun to strike a light on the morning of the thirteenth of May, one thousand eight hundred and twenty-seven, when Mr. Samuel Pickwick burst like another sun from his slumbers, threw open his chamber window, and looked out upon the world beneath. Goswell Street was at his feet, Goswell Street was on his right hand—as far as the eye could reach, Goswell Street extended on his left; and the opposite side of Goswell Street was over the way. 'Such,' thought Mr. Pickwick, 'are the narrow views of those philosophers who, content with examining the things that lie before them, look not to the truths which are hidden beyond"
-Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers

This quotation by Dickens has inspired me since I read the Pickwick Papers when I was around 15 years old. Reading has always been important to me, both as a recreational activity and as a way of developing politically. Authors and thinkers such as Aristoteles, Plato, John Stuart Mill, George Orwell, Nelson Mandela and Antonio Gramsci to name a few, have all played an important part when I have been trying to make sense of the world. On the other hand, being an active person, I have had a strong urge to do things practically as well. When in my teens, playing handball, painting graffiti and doing scout activities kept me quite busy-in fact so busy that my school performances were quite dreadful until my late teens.

Thankfully, I had, at the age of seventeen, the opportunity to embark for Italy for a year, to live together with a family in a small village called Conselve, in the province of Padua. This change was quite big for many reasons. First, a family with two parents and a brother of my own age was something I was not used to-at home I had lived most of my life with my mother, and a sister many years younger than I. Secondly, though the town of Turku(Åbo in my other native language, Swedish) was not the biggest metropolis on earth, the change to a very traditional village in Italy was notable. I remember the first thing I did with my new family was to collect grapes at the family vineyard at the vendemmia, the grandmother preparing lunch for us while I was supposed to learn how to drive a tractor(!) The year proved to be great, and later on I returned to Italy and worked, among other things, in a Parmesan cheese factory-so I did not have cheese for a couple of months after that, I can assure you.

Back from Italy, I took school quite seriously and started, for the first time in my life enjoying it, also taking up the responsibility to edit the school paper. I also engaged in various political activities, and became more active in my scout group, of which I soon became leader. My first political engagement was to fight for the local youth club to survive when it was under threat to be closed. I also took a keen interest in international politics, and started to work on making the youth of my party-The centrist Swedish Speaking Peoples Party- sensitive to the Israel/Palestine conflict by visiting the synagogue in Turku and Helsinki, meeting refugees from Palestine, reading books and writing articles. From there on, my interests have largely lied in international affairs, something that has also later on been reflected in my studies and, of course work and volunteering life.

The latest news from my part is that I recently got married and started exploring a new, wonderful city, Stockholm, in which I divide my time between Helsinki and quite extensive traveling.