East Belfast young people being failed by badly directed funding, conference to hear

Stormont decision makers need to rethink how they hand out funding if they want to make real difference in disadvantaged communities, a major conference is expected to hear on Thursday.

Emma Shaw, Executive Director of East Belfast ’s Phoenix Education Centre, says huge sums have been paid out over the years and many reports written on educational disadvantage but the problems they aim to address persist.

Meanwhile, the community activist is running a programme aimed at helping steer young people away from trouble who might otherwise be getting involved in anti social behaviour. Emma helps young people some of whom have not left home in two years and others who are tackling trauma including drug and alcohol addiction as well as interactions with paramilitaries.

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But she insists that staff at the Phoenix who are “on the ground” could do much more if funding providers stopped “playing it safe” by funnelling large sums to “established” groups.

On Thursday, the Summit on Educational Disadvantage, at the Stormont Hotel, will “bring together educators, community leaders, and youth advocates to address the pressing issue of educational inequitable access to resources in East Belfast”.

Emma told Belfast Live: “I feel like we’ve had so many reports about educational disadvantage in East Belfast, so many people weighing in about it in terms of policy makers, politicians. But it’s always a very top-down approach. But I feel like no one really engages with the people who live there or the people who work there and do this sort of work and actually understand what the complexities are.”

She adds that reports and policy decisions “really miss out working class opinion”, with authors and decision makers “engaging with policy makers, politicians and big charities” but not “people like me on the ground”.

Grass roots projects run by Phoenix include Step Up For Change which Emma says has been ongoing since October and has 11 “young people on it who were not going to school or were involved in anti-social behaviour getting referred into it”. Among them are young lads “some of those young people haven’t left the house in two years” but are now getting up every morning much to the delight of their families.

The larger organisations that Emma says swallow up much of the funding aimed at tackling educational disadvantage are not on the ground and “don’t have that relationship component, whereas smaller organisations like ourselves, we’re able to be more flexible, we’re having those one-to-ones with them [young people] on a regular basis”.

Emma says “the people who are doing the work are maybe overlooked” for much funding.

Thursday’s summit is being co-hosted by Unite the union. Susan Fitzgerald, Unite’s regional secretary said: “Educational disadvantage is a class issue. Academic selection and an education system built around the interests of grammar and private schools are failing working class children.

“Northern Ireland has the highest proportion of young people leaving school without five GCSEs as a result. A staggering one in twelve 16-24 year olds are not in employment, education or training - higher than anywhere else on these islands.

“Poverty and inter-generational deprivation reinforce and perpetuate educational disadvantage. Even the apprenticeships which used to offer an alternative to working class young people these days have academic entry grades beyond reach of young people from working class areas, added to the fact that there simply aren’t enough genuine apprentice opportunities in the first place.

“Educational disadvantage feeds into wider social problems. Young people suffering social exclusion, especially young men, can be easy prey for divisive narratives. We have to force our Governments to make sure no child is left behind and that those who have already been failed are given access to skills, decent employment and the respect they deserve.”

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