Melissa explains it all

Melissa Suffield is an actress in Eastenders.  Despite the fact the programme is made less than a mile from where I live, I never watch it. It’s only through osmosis that I know her character is Ian Beale’s daughter, Lucy.

On Tuesday night BBC Three aired a documentary, as part of their adult season, looking at the issue of lowering the voting age to 16.  It was an authored piece by Melissa, who is 16 herself. If it was a requirement of contract agreement, she did an excellent job of appearing genuinely interested in the issue. In actual fact, it was pretty obvious that she was bothered about politics, and as one caller to a radio show that featured on the programme said “when you give up playing Lucy Beale, you’ve got a good job ahead of you as a political reporter.” (Good news, given her Eastenders profile lists political journalism as her future career ambition).

The set-up for the programme was that she had four weeks to find out about the issues around votes at 16. This involved extensive travelling around the UK, and the Isle of Man, in order to investigate whether the voting age should be lowered. It would have been all too easy to fall into the trap of mixing a few celebrities with a few opinionated teenagers, but refreshingly the programme steered clear of all the usual suspects. And along the way it tackled issues as diverse as volunteering, young carers, the BNP and citizenship ceremonies.

Being television there has to be some “visuals” to make the documentary more than just talking heads, and apart from a couple of silly costumes and a slightly pointless meeting of 30+ young people in Trafalgar Square, the programme was light on the fluff and actually allowed the interviewees to do the talking. Among the more poignant moments was the 17-year-old young carer, who had to look after her autistic(?) brother, who despite Melissa’s observation that she was one of the most mature 17-year-olds she knew, said she didn’t think she was old enough to vote.  That reminded me of BYC chair Emily Beardsmore’s assertion that the very fact young people think that way is a demonstration of their maturity.

In fact her’s (apologies, I haven’t got names as iPlayer isn’t working very well on my computer) and a child psychologist’s were lone voices against the lowering of the voting age. There was a good sequence in the Isle of Man, the first country in Europe to have lowered the voting age, that offered some proof that young people would take their responsibility seriously.  Asked whether there was a risk young people would vote because they liked the name or the colour of a party rather than its policies, the Speaker of the House of Keys (IoM’s parliament) pointed out that plenty of people in the UK voted for the Monster Raving Loony Party. And they were all over 18.

If I had a few criticisms of the programme they were that it focused on national politics, and didn’t look at devolved or local governments (who’s decisions tend to have far more of an effect on 16-17 year olds), and that in an effort to show that people were apathetic about politics asked the question “How many parliamentary constituencies are there?”  Yes it was depressing that most people guessed numbers under 100, but actually not knowing what a constituency is doesn’t mean you are apathetic towards politics. (Being a political geek that I am, I can tell you there are currently 646).

The most interesting bits were the two sequences filmed inside a polling booth, at the recent European elections. The first was recorded on a mobile phone by a Brazilian woman who had just got her British nationality, and therefore was voting for the first time. The second was Melissa and her mum (who had decided to let Melissa choose who she should vote for). Both times, and I’m guessing this was just coincidence and not a very clever bit of electioneering, the party that was chosen was the Liberal Democrats.  Moreover, I always thought it was an offence (with a custodial punishment) under the Representation of the People Act to communicate how someone voted.

Which, given that overall I thought it was a good piece of television, did leave me wondering whether it would go the way of another great BBC Three documentary, Tower Block Dreams.  That programme fell foul of the 1949 Wireless Telegraphy Act that prohibits any promotion of illegal radio services; meaning that whilst it is perfectly legal to interview a terrorist, you risk being thrown into jail if you do a programme about pirate radio. As a result, the series will never be screened again.

I hope that isn’t true of this programme.  And that this isn’t the last time we see Melissa the political journalist.

Photo courtesy of David Spender.  Used under licence.

Tags:16: too young to vote, bbc three, bnp, citizenship ceremonies, eastenders, emily beardsmore, house of keys, ian beale, isle of man, lucy beale, melissa suffield, monster raving looney party, parliamentary constituencies, representation of the people act, tower block dreams, trafalgar square, volunteering, votes at 16, wireless telegraphy act, young carers

Sacrifice, optional and about other people

There’s been quite a lot of discussion over the last couple of weeks about the decision to allow BTCV and the Wildlife Trust to run a programme of volunteering for young people in London to regain their free travel passes.

Former London Mayor Ken Livingstone introduced a radical scheme that allowed every young person under 16 the right to free transport on the capital’s buses. It was widely heralded as a positive step in order to tackle social exclusion, on the simple premise that if young people couldn’t get to places they couldn’t participate.

Young people who’ve caused anti-social behaviour, and other offences, have had their passes taken away (which in itself has led to discussions about whether that is the correct punishment). In order to get them back, they need to undertake a period of volunteering with the above charities, as outlined last week.

It’s just another example of the increasing stretching of the term volunteering, particularly by government, to fit a whole host of programmes and projects. I may be a volunteering purist, but I get worried that too many initiatives are muddling volunteering with participation, work experience or community service.

Volunteering obviously comes from the word “voluntary”, which means optional.  If you are asked to make a voluntary contribution, you can decide not to give. If you are asked to volunteer some information about yourself, you can choose not to. All this makes a mockery of both the government and opposition proposals for compulsory volunteering.

But volunteering isn’t just about making a choice to do something.  My favourite definition of volunteering is “philanthropy of your time”. The great 19th-century philanthropists (and today’s philanthropists) didn’t donate their money for personal gain, but because they believed in the greater good.  The libraries, art galleries, hospitals and trusts that enriched public life in this country came about because those people understood the basic principles of social return on investment.

And that’s why some schemes appear to be betraying the concept of volunteering on two related fronts. Firstly, whilst I’d never deny the right of volunteers to use their volunteering to develop skills and gain experience, nor that people should be stopped from volunteering because they want to improve their CV, I get particularly worried when volunteering is promoted as primarily about skills development and increasing job prospects. Hospital radio has always been the way budding DJs got to practice their ‘art’, but certainly at my hospital radio station it was always made clear that you were there to serve the patients; the skills you developed were a by-product. Volunteering is not simply about personal gain.

Which is my second point – volunteering is about doing something that makes a positive difference for someone else (or at least something else, in the case of environmental volunteering). That’s why I get a bit nervous by things like the National Talent Bank that appear to be about promoting volunteering without a single mention that volunteering is a means to an end; not the end in itself. Even v appears to be about counting the number of volunteers placed rather than the effect those volunteers can have.

And if I could have a third point, it would be that volunteering has to involve a sacrifice. I’m all for new ways of volunteering, including current thoughts around micro-volunteering, but I’d get slightly worried if you could count yourself as a volunteer because you had re-tweeted a message on Twitter. That’s akin to counting yourself a philanthropist because you dropped your 1p of spare change into a collecting tin.

Does this matter?  Well, I think so. Five or so years ago, before the current rush to push volunteering, lots of people (including young people) engaged in positive volunteering opportunities because they believed in the cause and wanted to make a difference. I certainly don’t want to rubbish the new initiatives that have tried to engage new people into volunteering, but we need to be careful we don’t lose or de-value that level of volunteering, or muddle good citizenship (participation) with the extra effort required for an activity to be counted as volunteering. Because, if a young person who helps run a Brownie night every week is compared equally with a young person who once spent an afternoon in a recording studio making a music track, we’re in danger of losing the real value of volunteering. And that is the effect it has on others.

So what do I think should have been done to give back travel passes to young people?  Well, my suggestion would have been the creation of young people’s courts, to introduce the principle of being judged by peers. Part of what the “jury” would look at was what pro-social activities the young person had been involved in. That could include volunteering, but it wouldn’t make the direct connection between volunteering and returning the pass. And the jury should of course focus on the effect that the volunteering had.

Photo courtesy of Actions Speak Louder. Used under licence.

Tags:anti-social behaviour, btcv, ken livingstone, national talent bank, philanthropy, social return on investment, v, volunteering, wildlife trust

Compulsory volunteering is wrong, wrong, wrong.

Gordon Brown has announced that he wants to require young people to undertake 50 hours of community service, and that this will form part of Labour’s manifesto for next year’s (presumably) general election. It’s not particularly surprising; David Cameron and the Tories have long been floating the notion and Gordon Brown was responsible for the setting up of youth volunteering charity V and generally pushing for young people to be more active in their community.

But I think it’s a horrendous idea. The suggestion is that it will help charities, but personally I can’t think of anything worse than third sector organisations being expected to provide opportunities for young people mandated to do “goodly works”.  Compulsory volunteering is a total misnomer.

There’s loads of reasons why I hold that view.

Firstly it will force an unnecessary formalisation of community service. Alongside the (disgracefully) large number of young carers in this country, there are many other young people who help others in their community by running errands, visiting, looking-out-for or taking them on trips. It’s unlikely that these activities will count towards compulsory community service, and if they do they will have to be formally assessed, agreed and recorded in a way that destroys both the relationship the young people had with the person they were helping and the reason they were helping them out.

It removes any form of social entrepreneurship: how are you going to be able to prove your community service if you have set up your own activity. Setting up an online support site, tidying up somewhere close to your house or running a street football league: these are all legitimate community activities that a young person could do without any involvement of an official organisation to oversee their contribution. Why should a young person be told that these are not acceptable activities but joining an organisation is? And if these are acceptable, how are you going to ensure that people are actually doing these activities and not just saying they are? How are you going to ensure the scheme recognises social entreprenuers but isn’t used by those wanting to duck out of getting involved?

My concern is that this creates a dangerous connection between the government and the third sector. Just as no-one is forced to give to charity, there is something wrong with government forcing people to volunteer.

Secondly, what is the scope for deciding what and what isn’t community service? Is being involved in your school council? Is being involved in a political party community service? Is playing in a community orchestra, football team or performing street dance community service? If it isn’t, is tutoring or mentoring others in those activities community service? (and if so does your training count in those hours?).

Thirdly, only this week a story broke that many teachers think that the efforts to increase literacy have led to children losing the enjoyment of reading for pleasure. I think the same will be true of compulsory community service.

Many young people volunteer to improve their CV or to develop a skill, but many more volunteer because they want to make a positive contribution. They don’t want to undertake volunteering to tick boxes or simply get a record of their achievements. This was one of the failings of Millennium Volunteers, repeated with V and going to be far worse where there is a mandatory requirement to do this. From a personal perspective, one of the reasons I didn’t want to do my MV was that it seemed to be more about achieving a set number of hours than the value you added to a project.

Indeed, Volunteering England wrote something similar last month (about using volunteering as a way of assessing people applying for permanent UK residence):

Active citizenship activities should be meaningful and enjoyable to present a good image of community participation in the UK and not imply that volunteering is purely a means to an end. If activities do not serve a community need or if the verification arrangements are too simplified, the process could become a “tick-box exercise” and provide the applicant with little benefit.

Finally, why is it just young people? What message are we trying to convey if we say that only those under 19 should be mandated to be involved in community service whereas everyone else only needs to choose to?

And I as every youth organisation will tell you until they are blue in the face; the lack of the young people isn’t the problem: it’s the youth leaders needed to support them. I volunteered for many years as a youth leader, but I don’t think I would have done so had I had to work with young people who didn’t want to be there apart from whatever threat the government will use to get them to complete their community service.

Yes, I definitely want more young people to volunteer and be involved in their community. But I don’t think it’s through forcing them to complete a certain number of hours or tick a particular set of boxes, any more than using volunteering as a stick to reduce student tuition fees etc.

Young people need to be engaged citizens, active in their community, not because they are forced to but because they want to. It would be so much better if Gordon Brown and David Cameron both changed their pledges from making every young person undertake community service to making a society where every young people wants to undertake community service.

And if you do want to volunteer, try here.

Images courtesy of Paul Allison. Used under licence.

Tags:comunity service, david cameron, gordon brown, v, volunteering, volunteering england