The Troubles may be over but young people in deprived areas have many social problems to deal with. Youth Initiatives is there to help, writes Bryan Coll
POLEGLASS ISN'T the first choice that would spring to most university students' minds when picking a gap-year location. But for US accountancy student Mark Fjelsted, moving from Minnesota to the west Belfast housing estate was surprisingly easy. "I always had an interest in Northern Ireland," says the 21-year-old, between games of dodgeball and indoor hockey. "And to be here at a time of change has been even better."
Fjelsted is one of five "gappers", or volunteer students, working at Youth Initiatives (YI), a cross-community organisation based in one of Belfast's most deprived neighbourhoods. Founded in 1991, YI is a stalwart of Northern Ireland's expansive cross-community scene. Having weathered the Troubles, ceasefires, the peace process and devolution in a notoriously politicised neighbourhood, the 16 staff and more than 200 members of YI provide a unique barometer of the social changes being experienced by many young people in today's Northern Ireland.
For the moment, however, the group's main priority is lighting the barbecue. The usual midweek "Lifeline" session - a social development class for 15- to 18-year-olds - has been given over to a fundraising event for the groups' forthcoming trips to Romania and the Bronx. While the hot dogs are fending off the rain on the patio, inside YI's modest, graffiti-covered activity centre is a scene of carefully controlled chaos. Staff member Karen Boyd is monitoring proceedings, refereeing both the hockey game and the in-house rules (no swearing, to name one).
One of the more striking features of Thursday night's session is the lack of cliques within the group. Teenagers in baseball caps and tracksuits mingle easily with those wearing black eyeliner and skinny jeans. Some might prefer a gossip or a quick cigarette beside the barbecue over a game of hockey, but the overall impression is of young people having a good time.
"Teenagers here get a bad press," says Andy Hewitt, Youth Initiatives' franchise manager. "What we try to do is create a positive environment and get young people involved in their community."
Poleglass was uncharted territory for Hewitt before his arrival at Youth Initiatives in 1995, having lived in affluent north Down for most of his life. "Coming from Protestant, middle-class Holywood, Poleglass was like a different country," he says.
A glance at statistics on social and economic deprivation shows the extent of the area's problems. According to research carried out by a local community group, 60 per cent of under-25s in Poleglass come from single-parent families. Over a third of all adults from Poleglass and neighbouring Twinbrook claim unemployment benefit, and the two areas are among the top 10 per cent of most deprived wards in Northern Ireland.
As predominantly Catholic, working-class areas, Poleglass and Twinbrook were prime recruiting zones for republican paramilitaries during the Troubles. Today, the area is burdened with a high crime rate, and with car theft and joyriding, most often committed by teenagers.
Some of the young people at Thursday night's barbecue have also been scarred, quite literally, by violent, antisocial behaviour. In front of a small group of friends, 17-year-old Ryan Cummins rolls back his sleeve to reveal a 6in-long bandage covering a knife wound. Cummins says he was stabbed by another teenager in an unprovoked attack, adding that indiscriminate knifings are becoming more frequent in the area.
"Young people have a sense of disconnection and that leads to antisocial behaviour," says Hewitt. "At Youth Initiatives, young people have a sense of ownership. It's not about entertaining them. They're involved in delivering part of what we do."
Among the teenage members are 40 volunteers who lead group activities alongside senior staff members. Seventeen-year-olds Laura Whinnery and John McBurney currently volunteer on the Crosslinks programme, a group that works on improving cross-community relations with a partner youth club in east Belfast, a mostly Protestant part of the city.
"The biggest problem here is boredom," says McBurney, assessing the problems faced by his friends. "A lot of people have nothing to do except stand on street corners and drink".
Like many of her peers, it was Whinnery's limited social life that first drew her to join the group. "It's totally adjusted my lifestyle", she says. "Up here you're meeting different people from different backgrounds. It gives you a whole new way of thinking."
Whinnery's articulate analysis of the challenges facing young people in her neighbourhood is more like that of a social theorist than a 17-year-old. She believes today's Poleglass teenagers have left tribal politics behind. It is mostly parents, she maintains, who are stoking old resentments.
"Since there are no paramilitaries as such, people aren't as attached to those prejudices any more," she says. "Now they just want to go and meet people."
When Whinnery takes young people from Youth Initiatives to its sister club in the east, she is frustrated by the hesitations of some of her Protestant counterparts to make the reciprocal journey. "There's a major reluctance in the east to come over to the west," she says. On a recent residential trip she helped to organise, Whinnery says that out of the 20 places made available to Protestant young people, only five were filled. "I think there's a harder edge to the loyalist side than there is to guys from this side," says Hewitt.
For YI director Doug Smith, Protestant uncertainty regarding cross-community relations is easily explained. Catholics, says Smith, are widely perceived as being the victors in the peace process. "The nationalist community as a whole is a bit more optimistic," he says.
"There's enthusiasm about new jobs and having the chance to live in a better area. I'm not sure you could say the same about loyalist neighbourhoods."
But in today's Northern Ireland, putting effort into improving Protestant-Catholic relations can sound distinctly old-fashioned. For the leaders of Youth Initiatives, issues like mental health are more urgent concerns than religious or political identity. "We've recognised that [mental health] is one of the most serious issues in this community," says Tony Silcock, who runs the centre's "Lifeline" project
According to Silcock, about 80 per cent of Youth Initiatives' young members know friends, family members or acquaintances who have taken their lives. "It's a very big problem here," agrees McBurney, before revealing that three of his friends took their own lives. "We're not scared to talk about suicide," says Silcock. "The stigma is slowly changing. People now recognise that it has serious consequences for the community."
But if getting young people to talk about mental health is tricky, bringing God into conversation is even harder. With its origins in a Catholic youth mission, Youth Initiatives has always maintained a faith element in its work. As the nature of its social work has evolved over the years, so too have the methods by which religious beliefs are discussed.
"Young people are coming to us from a much different place today," says director Smith.
When the centre first opened in 1991, about 60 per cent of people in Poleglass attended Mass on a regular basis. According to Smith, today's figure is about 5 per cent. "Our young people don't identify with being Catholic churchgoers any more," he says.
With Poleglass teenagers now forming their community's first secular generation, Youth Initiatives, in addition to its busy calendar of social work, has been tasked with filling a spiritual void. "It's getting to the stage where the Catholic Church in this area is saying, 'young people aren't coming to Mass but you guys are looking at real issues, values and beliefs," says Silcock. "They're saying they're happy to endorse us."
In the group's modern office block, American volunteer Sarah Quinn is talking about a different kind of faith. As she plans the programme for the girls' group she leads every week, Quinn describes the biggest difference she feels Poleglass teenagers are making in their community.
"In Northern Ireland there seems to be a lack of faith in political success," she says. "That was difficult for me to grasp when I came here because I've always been someone who thought politics could work for you."
But 22-year-old Quinn believes local teenagers are slowly shrugging off that deep-set apathy. "For young people here that have never seen government work, now is their first opportunity to see what it can do for them," she says, laying down a challenge that Stormont would do well to bear in mind.