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Addressing youth unemployment is a priority[i]
because employment is so intimately related to other pressing societal issues:
poverty, hunger, delinquency, safety and societal health. Mentoring
organisations have identified that the dearth of mentors leaves an overwhelming
and ever increasing support gap to assist at-risk youth. How else may we support disaffected youth in believing that they indeed
can be productive?
Gaining one’s first job can be challenging
but for marginalized youth (such as refugees, migrants or youth from vulnerable
families) it can become insurmountable. Technology, however, can facilitate
workforce entry, particularly because youth is so engaged in consuming and
sharing new media. Our Virtual Mentoring Model is powerful because youth best
learn from peers they can identify with and who have overcome difficulties
similar to theirs. These positive peers are not in the limelight, which is why
it is important to identify them and interview them, however, when their
narratives are shared, they provide an authentic and powerful inspiration for
at-risk youth. The audience identifies with these role models and start
challenging years of disengagement with empowerment (“I can do this too”). The
NZ Human Right Commission showcased our previous research in this domain
because it showed high uptake across ethnicities and socio-economic background.[ii]
Outcome
and impact: We will design an online series
featuring stories with unusual, innovative employment or self-employment
solutions for youth to access directly - thus overcoming barriers/reluctance to
access services[iii]. This
online series will collate 5 stories featuring ideas that some youth may be
exposed to for the first time. Our established wide network of community
organisations will, as in the past, promote the online material to at-risk
youth, their youth workers and other community organisations. This activity is designed
to bring disengaged youth closer to the professional services dedicated to
helping them intensively. This is an early intervention (top rather than bottom
of the cliff) because of the significant value of productivity and engagement[iv].
We are versed in evaluation and success
measurement - impact is central to all our activities. Our past projects have
been taken up widely [> 1500 youth engaged in internet activity; > 1500
in social media/Facebook participation; Online programme expected to reach 1000
young learners soon; General reach YouTube channel >22.000 views]. We have
collected past evidence that at-risk youth used and shared virtual peer
mentoring video material on different topics via mobile devices/internet.
Impact users’ interviews will detail how stories inspired them into action and
how this action, in turn, made a difference to them and people around them.
[i] “Youth rate of unemployment has risen
noticeably higher than the rate for all unemployed people over the last five
years. The 2007-08 recession is continuing to have a huge impact on available
employment options for young people” and ”The number of young people (18-24)
receiving the unemployment benefit increased during the 2007-08 recession. The
increase was greater in this age group than in any other age group” (Cox, A.
& Black, R. (2012) Employment and Skills Shortages: Opportunities for Young
People in the Waikato, Poverty Action Waikato - Our Workforce: Our Youth. p.13)
[ii] Janson, A. (2012) Engaging multicultural at-risk youth in transition to
tertiary education and the workplace. New Zealand Race Relation Report to the
UN Convention for Human Rights, Race Relations Commission (Diversity Research),
Wellington.
[iii] A Waikato study
(IndieFilm; personal communication) confirmed global results that the use of
social networks is very high amongst youth across socio-economic backgrounds,
that a high proportion have shared video on a social network and that the vast
majority used smartphones in order to access the internet and share content
with their friends online. Our aim is to take advantage of this extensive use
of technology in order to promote these messages.
[iv] One example of
documented impact is about disseminating multi-media stories to young Maori
audiences. A TPK study showed that amongst the 15-24 year old Maori audiences
who use the multimedia capability of their mobile phones, 72% take videos and
69% watch videos or listen to audio content. Hence disseminating audio-visual
interviews with aspirational content is a likely way to reach and influence
this audience. The media report that these numbers have increased.