Why do young people need to build power?

Funding young people’s power mean equipping young people to act on and with power: to interrogate power, engage in democracy, influencing, and activism in many forms, to drive change at a structural and systemic level. It means handing more power to young people and less to organisations and institutions, requiring adults to work with young people as equal partners.

In practice, our social and political world currently makes young people’s power very difficult to build and exert, especially young people who experience structural injustice and inequalities. Young people face great prejudice against their talent, capacity, rights and knowledge to be involved in changemaking. We do not educate most British young people to think that their power matters or is legitimate, and how to use it within our system. Intersectionally, different young people face particular barriers to their involvement in holding power to account. Young people are legally and developmentally distinct from adults, but this should not justify adults instinctively hording power.

Why do young people need to build power?

Funding young people’s power mean equipping young people to act on and with power: to interrogate power, engage in democracy, influencing, and activism in many forms, to drive change at a structural and systemic level. It means handing more power to young people and less to organisations and institutions, requiring adults to work with young people as equal partners.

In practice, our social and political world currently makes young people’s power very difficult to build and exert, especially young people who experience structural injustice and inequalities. Young people face great prejudice against their talent, capacity, rights and knowledge to be involved in changemaking. We do not educate most British young people to think that their power matters or is legitimate, and how to use it within our system. Intersectionally, different young people face particular barriers to their involvement in holding power to account. Young people are legally and developmentally distinct from adults, but this should not justify adults instinctively hording power.