At a time of high unemployment and almost no growth, young people face huge challenges as they try and go on to higher education and employment.  Many of these young people are ambitious and have the talent to go on to do great things but they need the support to get there.

With almost three million people unemployed including a million young people, it means wasted talent and loss of hope.  In areas like my constituency of Bethnal Green and Bow – with high levels of deprivation, including the highest levels of child poverty in the country – this is so much more apparent.  With some 7,540 16-18 year olds not in education, employment or training (NEETS) and high graduate unemployment, these are young people who could excel if only they were given the right opportunities and a chance.  That’s where Futureversity comes in.

Futureversity, originally Tower Hamlets Summer University, is a youth charity which was set up to provide young people with innovative educational opportunities all year round, but especially during the summer holidays. The charity was established following research that I conducted as a volunteer in the early 1990s for the Institute of Community Studies – the social research and enterprise organisation set up by the late Michael Young.  The organisation works to promote independent learning, raise achievement, promote tolerance and good community relations, increase access to educational opportunity and involve young people in the organisation’s development. Over 100, 000 young people have participated.  Alumni include Dizzee Rascal, and the organisation has a proven track record of cutting youth crime.  It has won a clutch of awards for its work.

Last week, Futureversity asked 2,000 UK adults what they thought about young people. One in four (27%) Britons think young people are lazy, with men more likely than women to describe young people they know as ‘lacking communication skills’ and being ‘unintelligent’.

Through a separate survey of young people we see how this negativity is impacting on young people’s chances of getting a foot on the career ladder, effectively placing a cap on their aspirations and closing doors to employment, with 64% saying that employers and business are not positive towards helping young people, and most believing they will not achieve their job ambitions.

These negative perceptions will do little to give young people hope. These themes of hopelessness and despair and negative stereotyping are real. They are seen as part of everyday life for many young people who enroll to do courses that will raise their confidence, increase their skills and prepare them for jobs.  But the demand is five times higher than can be met, with 10,000 people last year competing for only 2,000 course places available in London. This shows how determined they are about their future and how the debate about them needs to change.

A massive 72% of the public told us they believe young people have an important role to play in the recovery of the British economy.  Young people are the solution not the problem, but this generation has been hit hardest by our economic woes.  The consequences of this are much more keenly felt in places with high levels of child poverty. I frequently meet parents who are astounded that their university-educated children cannot find jobs.  This lack of job prospects, and absence of support, is triggering new levels of anxiety in our young people with nearly two out of three feeling stressed and nervous about their future.

Almost half (46%) say school did not give them confidence to find a job and 45% said school failed to recognise their talents or inspire them to find the right career path.  Most (64%) say they feel stressed about jobs and their future but this government has no vision to create jobs for them.

These findings have serious consequences for the whole of the UK, because they reinforce negative stereotypes which in turn increase a chasm between young people, their aspirations and wider society. Most (53%) say that they cannot afford to go to university, that schools didn’t give them confidence to succeed that employers have negative attitudes towards them, and the government simply isn’t listening or cares about their plight.

Darra Singh’s riots review has warned the riots of last summer could happen again unless immediate action is taken.  We need a new plan for young people that prepares them for work.  Summer universities such as Futureversity, on their own clearly do not provide the whole answer to tackling youth crime and boredom among young people, but it is incredible just how many places in Britain still lack creative activity of this kind, designed to tap into the energies and enthusiasms of young people.

Futureversity provides a practical answer to a very visible problem of the kind we now desperately need to tackle in many of Britain’s cities if we are to create a pathway for the next generation of young to realise their potential and make a positive contribution to the economy and society.

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Rushanara Ali is MP for Bethnal Green and Bow and shadow minister for international development

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Photo: Elias Schwerdtfeger