That was a bold title, wasn't it? I of course don't agree with it one bit, but an article I read earlier has compelled me to write this piece (apologies for the link-bait).
David Ainsworth blogged in Third Sector today about
young people and their inability to organise the proverbial in a brewery. In my opinion, one shared by those that commented on the piece, it was a collection of popular but inaccurate and crass stereotypes that do not (and that never have) accurately applied to 'young people'. David hits all of the key stereotypical touch-stones associated with young people, I won't go into them here, but I do recommend reading the piece and commenting as you feel appropriate.
Before I express my own feelings on the subject, I'd like to offer some excerpts from the comments already posted below the line on Third Sector:
Catherine Murray writes:
Trusteeship is like any other job - trustees are recruited for their expertise and for what they can bring to a board. Charities are like any other organisation - a living organism with diverse needs and projects it wants to do well. Charities therefore must have a diverse mix of people on their trustee boards, as people below have pointed out.
Leon Ward adds:
I joined the Board of Plan UK when I was 18 after spending 4 years as a young advisor. Plan is a £60m organisation. I'm also a Trustee of Leap Confronting Conflict (£1m) and Ineract Worldwide (£3m). Your views of young people are archaic and wrong.
I blog regularly for ThirdSector and would like to direct you to that blog where I outline the benefits of young trustees:- http://leonward.thirdsector.co... you'll also find the perspective of a young trustee on several strategic issues for organisations
I'm sure you'll agree that both Leon and Catherine are people that have their heads screwed-on, and they both happen to be young trustees as well. Not quite the drinking, unreliable, overly-emotional and forgetful young people that David describes, but I'm sure we can forgive them that.
I have the honour of working with the UK's largest voluntary youth organisation,
Girlguiding UK. We have over half a million members, and everything that we do is driven by those members. We have a range of youth panels that steer the work of the organisation, and each year for the last four years we have released a major piece of research, the
Girls' Attitudes Survey, that is designed and developed by our young members.
Our young members have attended and spoken at events such as
Rio+20 and
CSW 56, and we have one member due to attend the c
limate change talks in Qatar later this year. Some of our members are part of groups such as the
British Youth Council, many of them have
petitioned government on issues important to young people. These young people are not the people that David Ainsworth describes, these are highly engaged, political and community-conscious young people with amazing levels of drive and a determination to help make the world a better place.
David, in this case, is selling young people short.
PS - I do really enjoy reading Third Sector, I find it an immensely valuable resource, and I am also confident that the majority of David's contributions are on-the-money (Just not the one that I refer to here)
