A Youth Fight for Jobs demonstrator on another protest, photo Paul Mattsson (Click to enlarge: opens in new window)
Helen Pattison, London Youth Fight Austerity
Youth workers and teenage service users lobbied Camden council on 6 April in defence of youth services which the Labour council plans to slash. One protester, from a single parent family in an inner London borough, said youth services allowed him to branch out and build his confidence – the main reasons he is now at university.
Bluebell, a secondary school student, said that no child in Camden hasn’t used or been positively impacted by the youth services in some way. She didn’t think cutting the services would save money as without them people would not be able to reach their full potential and it would leave a generation without the support they need.
Before the council agreed the cuts to youth services, Hannah Morris, Camden Youth MP, thanked the council for listening to the consultation, protesters and trade unions and for preventing some cuts to services but asked that they reconsider and stop all the cuts. Hannah stressed that these services were life savers and without them the only people to lose out would be young people and their families.
The cuts were passed but after the meeting the local organiser of the council workers’ union Unison stressed the campaign would continue.
