Inclusive Youth Work Practice

In a changing economic context there will be partisan drivers mobilising separateness. However remaining separate, whether acknowledged or not, is to root relationships with others in open or hidden rivalry and hostility.Separateness is never benign, but always conceals hostility, violence and threat. Separateness is the enemy of good relations between different citizens from diverse backgrounds. Good relations between citizens depends on practical experiences of being justly treated, acknowledged as being equal and different and embraced in an interdependent manner .To support young people to develop compassion, moving them beyond the millstone of hurtful relationships and beyond their own sense of what they were capable of is a core task.To free their imagination, live hopefully and experience change is inclusive youth work practice. To sustain young people as they take new steps and experience diversity with its discomfort and excitement is to grow an intergenerational culture more at ease with different others. To sustain such a culture grow in the centres of our societies, North and South, is to nurture and sustain something new. The more it happens, and in the more unexpected places, the stronger civil society will become. The new knowledge needed is the experience of being with different others and being at ease. This knowledge has to be experienced and it is experienced in relationships where old separating lines are ‘transgressed’. In such meetings new knowledge is created and new experiences of ‘otherness’ grow. To treat one another fairly and justly; to recognise and value difference and to build a more interdependent society are values worth working for.