Authors: Peter Kelly, Seth Brown & James Goring
The COVID-19 pandemic is triggering profound crises around the world, and the social, economic and political fallout from these crises is likely to be longer and deeper than any recession for several generations. The impact will be significant, and long-term for young people – in terms of their health and well-being, education and training, and employment pathways.
The COVID-19 Recovery Scenarios for Young People in Melbourne’s Inner North project is a partnership between the Inner Northern Youth Employment Taskforce, the Inner Northern LLEN and the UNESCO UNEVOC Centre @ RMIT University.
Our aim is to identify recovery scenarios for young people in the Local Government Areas (LGAs) of Darebin, Moreland and Yarra. So far the project has conducted an online survey, stakeholder interviews, and interviews with young people to help to develop the scenarios.
As we have seen in the first 6 months of the pandemic, the massive fault lines of inequality, injustice, racism, and the global and national social, political and economic tensions that characterised the world in which COVID-19 emerged, have been amplified.
In this video we present a preliminary account of how young people living in the Inner North of Melbourne describe some of the challenges and possible futures in terms of their communities, including issues related to: racism and discrimination, climate change, politics and government, and the impacts that young people can have on these challenges.
In this video stakeholders from schools, local government, businesses and youth service providers and advocacy organisations provide their insights on the challenges and opportunities that young people will encounter in the places that they live. They describe concerns and questions such as: work, mental health, identity, sport, re-engaging with community, vulnerable young people, disengagement, technology and connection, student voice, social change and co-design.
As the research proceeds we want to further explore what communities in the inner north will look like in 2025. We want to examine the challenges and opportunities that young people will encounter in the places where they live. We want to consider the range of strengths and weaknesses in these communities in terms of the futures that we might face.
Featured Image Credit
UNEVOC @ RMIT 