Young people making their voices heard

Two enormous artworks stand almost from floor to ceiling in Johnston Central Library’s exhibition space. With doodles, pictures, bursts of text in eye-catching colours at first glance they look like snatches of graffiti. Upon closer inspection one poster lists what Cavan teenagers like about the county town, and the other lists what they would like to change. The list created in a youth participation art project run by Teach Oscail Family Resource Centre in recent weeks raised some surprising findings.

Peter Donohue, Community Aftercare Worker with the centre, assured that every word, scrawl, drawing and doodle was the work of the teenagers compiled over two “15-minute bursts”. Peter put his skills as a graphic designer to good use to bring the feedback together.

Addressing the well-attended launch on Monday afternoon, Peter recalled that going into the project he had imagined what the teens would say for things they would change about Cavan and admits he was way off the mark.

“We saw things like security cameras come up three or four times from different people in 15 minutes,” he said.

He challenged those in attendance to think of their own children and how long it would take them to come up with more CCTV as something they would like to see in Cavan.

Turning to the positives, he said it lacked specifics about Cavan bar mention of Killykeen, the Cathedral and the park.

“Nothing else there sings to me: This is Cavan.”

Peter interprets these ‘likes’ as coping mechanisms for the life stresses detailed in the things they would change about Cavan.

“You look at this” he says of the list of things they like about life in Cavan, “and you wonder why kids are in their house all the time - watching TV or Netflix, they’re on their phone, sleeping - this is showing you the type of response they have to this,” he says, indicating the list of negatives.

He said the insight was achieved by asking the youths as “experts in their own lives”.

“In doing so we uncovered stuff we never could have come up with. It makes you how many projects or interventions have been created or executed without doing this kind of thing first? It shows you the power of just asking these young people to give their expertise about them.”

Given there were members of Tusla, county councillors and gardaí in attendance, Peter urged them to take heed and act.

“We need to build the strong community bonds that they desire,” he emphasised.

Roisin McDonnell, whose 13-year-old son Leo was involved in the project, was impressed by the final artwork.

“I think it is fantastic to have so many young people involved in something so positive, and getting a chance to have their voices heard - making it feel like it’s their town and their voices matter to what’s happening locally.

“Long may it continue,” said the Tullyco mother.

One teenager, who contributed the drawing of the homeless person, but wished to speak anonymously said the project was important to express their feelings.

“We’re the ones living in Cavan, we’re the ones seeing it every day walking around the streets - we want to make it better for everyone, not just ourselves - and these are the issues we are seeing every day.

“We do care about our county and we care about our town.”

Another teenager, again speaking anonymously, said she wasn’t surprised by how youths referenced CCTV.

“No, I wasn’t surprised because there’s not a lot of CCTV and there’s a lot of things that need to be rectified, a lot of things that go unnoticed.”

She acknowledged that there were probably similar problems in towns across Ireland, and agreed with Peter’s suggestion that the positives were coping mechanisms for the negatives.

“A lot of people see that kind of stuff going on in the town and on the streets and they just stay inside and watch Netflix or whatever to do that instead.”

Cathal Grant works with Tusla, covering Cavan and Monaghan and said the artwork was “a really important reflection of the voice of the children in Cavan today”.

He explained this was a good example of best practice in youthwork: “Are we creating the right space for young people to hear their voice? Is the right audience listening to the young people? And do the young people have an influence in terms of what they are seeing - is it going to make change?”

He said following this framework ensures “the people who need to hear what the young people are saying hear it”.

Cathal assured the Children and Young Person’s Services Committee in Cavan - which brings together all the stakeholders in the county, including Tusla, to assess and advise on gaps in services on the ground - will take heed.

“Today is a good example of how the voice of the young person in Cavan, through Teach Oscail can permeate all the way up to the policy makers in the area.”

Garda Christine Gallagher, a community garda in Cavan town, is eager to try to respond to the concerns raised.

“It’s good to see the feedback from young people and we can try to address some of the issues that they raised. We’re going to meet with some of the young people who did this artwork to see what we can do to improve their life in Cavan and make them feel safer.”

Cllr Niamh Brady said the artwork was “absolutely brilliant”, and felt the panel seeking changes was hard hitting.

“It’s sad, when you read that, it gets to you,” she says noting, that many of the issues raised are reflective of modern life.

“The positives are brilliant, but there should be way more things on the panel for the youths of the town to do. They need places to go - safe places, and by the look of the artwork they don’t feel safe.”

Former senator Kathryn Walsh attended with her two young children. Now with the National Youth Council of Ireland, she said it is important that young people are involved in the development of policies, and it’s important we don’t have “tokenistic tickbox exercises”.

“Young people are affected by the spaces around them. They want to have safe spaces, places to hang out, places to feel safe and express themselves and at a time when you have rising divisive narratives, lack of social cohesion it’s more important than ever that we have these safe spaces for young people,” said Kathryn.