Youth

From 'Hackney Solidarity' April 2005 issue, for Aspland & Marcon estates School gates closed? Rents up again Pensioners cheated Recycling cash Re-open our youth club School Gates Closed? It’s great to have a new secondary school on your doorstep, isn’t it? Especially as it is non-selective, mixed and non-religious, which many parents and kids prefer. If you can get a place there, that is. Many of the estate’s 11-year-olds who applied for Mossbourne Academy have been turned away. We’ve not met one who got in. It seems that academies are able to use their admissions procedures to get the intake...

From Kent Campaign to Defend Asylum Seekers The Kent Campaign to Defend Asylum seekers is organising a vigil on Sunday 3 April to highlight the plight of young refugees and their families who have disappeared following detention and deportation from the UK. Jon Flaig, campaign chair, said: “A general election is likely to be announced in the next week. We are calling on all candidates to reject playing politics with people’s lives by stirring up racism on the issue of asylum. By all means let us have a debate on the issue, but we must stop the dash to the bottom of the barrel we have seen....

On November 2 you will be called on to vote for president - at least those of you who are over 18 and are US citizens and have a permanent address. Polls have shown that a clear majority of 18 to 35-year olds are opposed to Bush. And with good reason! In the last four years Bush has launched the country into two major wars, and it is the young who are called on to fight and die for the profits of American oil companies. The Bush regime has caused dramatic increases in unemployment, poverty, and the number of people without healthcare. Military spending is way, way up, while funds for education...

The latest issue of Critique communiste, magazine of the French Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire, has an interview in which researcher Michel Pialoux discusses his findings on the “disorganisation of the working class” being generated by long-term mass unemployment and casualisation in France. “60 years ago, the bac [the French equivalent of A levels] was the passport to the bourgeoisie. Today it still has a symbolic significance even though 80% of an age group get it.” Those who don’t get it suffer worse than working-class kids who left school without qualifications in past decades: “Getting...

Dan Nichols reviews 'Bad Lads Army', Thursday nights ITV1 'Bad Lads Army' is the follow-up to 'Lads Army', a 2002 programme which put a group of young men through 1950s-style National Service training. This time, the 'lads' all have a criminal past of one sort or another. The left's attitude to conscription has always been ambivalent. On the one hand we abhor the idea of young men and women being forced to go off and fight imperialist wars. On the other hand we feel a non-mercenary army would, perhaps, be less willing to be used for internal repression. Taking a longer view, come the...

By Nick Holden On 19 May, posters began to appear near where we live in Wigston, Leicestershire. They announced that, from the following day, the police would be applying a curfew at 9pm every night for under 16 year olds, in two-thirds of the borough in which we live. The posters, giving us 24 hours notice of the curfews, were the first that most residents knew of the plan. The police claim that there is "evidence of a persistent problem with anti-social behaviour", by which they mean that groups of teenagers hang around outside the chip shop, or in the park. The curfew isn't the worst of it...

By Kate Ferguson The American far right and their moral agenda have now made their way to Britain. With massive funding by the Bush administration, they are promoting their 'silver ring' thing as the saviour of our immoral permissive youth (wear this silver ring to remind you just to say no). That's why it is more important than ever for us to be clear about our attitude towards teenage pregnancy. The Government has a two pronged approach to teenage pregnancy. The first strand of their strategy involves the inevitable target. They want to reduce the rate of conception among under-18s by 50% by...

By Ruth Cashman Anyone who's watched TV or walked past a phonebox recently will be acquainted with the series of adverts produced by the Government to advertise the national launch of Further Education Maintenance Allowances for 16-18 year olds this September. In these works of modernist genius, a private detective-type, badly disguised as a fire hydrant, dinner trolley, etc, leaps out to give unsuspecting 15-year-olds the skinny on the new allowance. The adverts may not be funny, but you do get the definite feeling that the Government's taking the piss. The only thing you can say about EMAs...

by Michael Wood Marcon Court is a council estate in Hackney where the residents are fighting back. The local council seems intent on turning the estate into private flats for commuters, yet not only has the TRA managed to stop them doing this (so far), they are (shock, horror) fighting to make it a decent place for ordinary working people to live. The spirit of this fight could be clearly seen in the recent Tenants' and Residents' Association youth meeting, organised so that the TRA could find out what the youth on the estate wanted to see done. The concerns covered a wide variety of issues...

The wealthy’s way of giving birth — courtesy of the NHS Described by NHS bosses as, “an income generating” idea, the Jentle midwifery scheme — where women are guaranteed one-to-one regular care … for the price of £4,000 — is a step towards a two tier NHS pre-natal service. Supporters of the scheme — which runs out of Queen Charlotte and Chelsea hospital in London — say it saves the NHS money because having the benefit of an attentive and trusted midwife has been shown to cut the number of caesarian deliveries. Which shows the crazy logic the NHS top brass believe in. Put in the funds to train...