Worrying about tomorrow

Young people are worried about their future. Fourteen advisory boards of repute have published an ‘inspirational volume’ of as many articles on the subject. ‘Young people and caring for their tomorrow’ is the rather awkward title. You could put it more simply: many young people have concerns about tomorrow and we have to do something about it together! Because they experience more and more pressure and therefore more often get psychological problems, while youth care is inadequate. Not all children and young people get the chance to play sports or exercise. The inequality of opportunity in education is growing. Society is becoming increasingly complicated. And the prospects for affordable housing are very slim. This is all very brief, I admit. And of course it is generalizing, because there are also young people who do have many opportunities and benefit from increased prosperity and/or from the position of their parents. But those expensive advisory boards do take a lot of words to outline the problem. And possible solutions do not appear very clear at first sight. And yet we are talking about the Social and Economic Council, the Council for Culture, the Council for Environment and Infrastructure and the Council for the Administration of Criminal Justice and Protection of Juveniles. Young people are not or hardly represented in these councils and, although young people have been spoken to, it seems that a better connection with the younger part of society has not yet been found. Perhaps that is a good task for the newly elected municipal councils and the colleges of B. and W. that are being formed in the region. Because certainly in the field of building and housing there is hardly any question of (self-)organization of young people. There are school and student unions, but when it comes to housing, it is apparently much more difficult to unite young people. If you look at the age of visitors to participation and residents’ evenings concerning building plans, you always see many shades of gray. Of course, young people can partly be blamed for this, but on the other hand it is logical that they are often busy with other things. Therefore it would be nice if regional politicians, but also market players, would make more of an effort to make the voice of young people heard in this area. If only to make their worries for tomorrow a little smaller.