First two parts can be found here -
http://rantingsandravingsofayoungone.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/uprising-part-1-of-3.html
http://rantingsandravingsofayoungone.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/uprising-part-2-of-3.html
As promised, here is my third and final blog post on my
experiences of UpRising, and this is going to be a "what's next" blog
really, interspersed with what I think UpRising did well, and what it could
have done better.
What UpRising taught me
Last Thursday, I shot down to Birmingham to apply for a job delivering
the National Citizens Service over the summer. On the Friday, I groggily
received a phone call from the interviewer - I shook myself awake and accepted
the job. I mention this for two reasons. A few years ago, I'd never used a
train by myself, I'd regularly use the wrong public transport and end up miles
from home. Keeping my woeful use of public transport from my parents was
probably the most impressive lie I have ever maintained. Seriously, I was bad.
I would have got lost on the way to the fridge if I didn't do that journey so
often. I was also very shy. If you casually know me, you might be surprised at
that, what with my big mouth, but genuinely, quite shy. Here I am then, a few
years later, thinking nothing of a 4 hour return train journey with a 10 minute
walk to a job interview in a new city, with no WiFi or any of the normal modern
crutches to help. My confidence at asking several total strangers on my way up
a road for the directions to a building I now know was only about 200 metres
away from me was new. I had the confidence to stupidly ask for directions at
every turn. UpRising gave me that confidence.
The second point of notice in the summer job is that it means that
I am working in a sector that I love, doing youth work and helping young people
make a difference in their local communities. If that is all that is on my
tombstone, "Here lieth Joe, he facilitated positive change in
communities" - and something about my undoubted world-class ability at the guitar - I would be happy. I don't think youth work is a career I
want to go into, but I do think that social action is something I want to weave
into every job I take. Helping young people run their own action campaigns,
having set up my own, is the perfect progression. At the end of my final long
summer as a student, I will have the skill set necessary to progress into
bigger youth action projects, and the contacts to facilitate them. Teaching young
people about their skills and weaknesses has been something that UpRising has
done very well.
What UpRising didn't teach me
UpRising was/is brilliant at teaching young people the theoretical
skills to make the changes in communities that they want to see, happen. It
puts them in contact with the people who can make a difference. What UpRising
doesn't do too well is the application of this knowledge. I attended a HOPE not
hate workshop near the end of my time at UpRising and was blown away by the
practical application of the skills that we had learned in UpRising. We learnt
about effective debating techniques, we learned how to listen, we learned how
to approach companies and organisations in a way that would be effective in
progressing our ideas. During my time at UpRising, there was no practical
application of the skills we were learning. I never once dropped a leaflet
through a door about a project I cared about, nor did I feel it was important
to. Doing the hard graft to make a grassroots project work was often ignored in
pursuit of tying together schemes and ideas.
Theory is crucial to a program. Don't get me wrong here, I am not
advocating for a program that ignores the reasons for doing a project, and
simply gets stuck in dropping leaflets and running workshops and focus groups.
However, with the Welsh project not given the additional three months the
other branches of the program received, it felt that we had to go elsewhere to
receive the practical tools so essential to Social Action. If the allotted time
was given to the UpRising Cymru project, I believe we would have been
instructed in the practical elements of a campaign, it was not given the
allotted time, and so felt rushed.
Leading on from this issue, my other issue is not one with
UpRising per se, but with the lack of support the Welsh program received.
UpRising Cymru changed my life. I don't mince my words, because it's true. I
also know that for the vast majority of the other people on the team, it did
also. It gave them opportunities and confidence, it gave them the skills they
needed to get passionate about things they cared about. But it was clarified at
our final meeting that UpRising Cymru has no funding to progress into 2016/17.
We will be the first and last cohort in Wales for the foreseeable future. There
was assurances that in the future it would be re-examined and possibly
re-opened, but it felt a bit futile, a bit pipedream. I understand that Wales
was a big leap for the organisation, I understand that other programs in other
cities are working well, but it just feels a bit symptomatic of the Welsh
situation - companies try out Wales, don't invest heavily in it, wonder why it
doesn't reach the fruition they hoped for, and then jump ship for England
again. Wales is a growing country, Cardiff is a growing city. UpRising leaving
Cardiff after only one cycle feels like the past year has been a bit pointless.
I have said many times that UpRising has changed my life for the better, but
the program could have done so well, in a country which really struggles for
youth representation at any meaningful level.
Conclusion
Wales is the only European country without an independent youth
forum. At national UK young ambassador meetings, the other Welsh Ambassador and
I feel a bit lost when other home countries describe their national youth
parliament, and the support they receive in making a difference for young
people in their country.
The loss of UpRising in Wales is sad. The loss of UpRising in
Wales on top of the total lack of means for young people to be heard in Welsh
politics is heart breaking.
I am again ending on a sad note, just like it feels that UpRising
Cymru has also, with a whimper, not a bang.
