Letters from a refugee

I really like this article on the BBC website about a woman's letters back to her sister in Iran. A pleasant and touching insight

Society in "deep trouble" shocker

A few days ago Unicef released a league table of the well being of children and of the 21 industrialised nations that were surveyed, Britain came bottom.

Unicef looked at 40 indicators from the years 2000-2003 including poverty, family relationships, and health.

One of the report's authors told the BBC that under-investment and a "dog-eat-dog" society were to blame for Britain's poor performance.

(click to link to story)

Child well being table:
1. Netherlands
2. Sweden
3. Denmark
4. Finland
5. Spain
6. Switzerland
7. Norway
8. Italy
9. Republic of Ireland
10. Belgium
11. Germany
12. Canada
13. Greece
14. Poland
15. Czech Republic
16. France
17. Portugal
18. Austria
19. Hungary
20. United States
21. United Kingdom
Source: Unicef

All in all, this is pretty grim as I'm supposed to be working directly with young people to increase their opportunities and sense of well being. I guess it's back to the drawing board...

David Cameron according to BBC news

is to call on society to restate its authority over the young, following the shootings of three London teenagers.

I must be honest and say that I found this particularly disappointing especially as DC has been quite pro young people and displaying a youth work approach in handling them so far. To be fair to DC, I think he's been the victim of some poor journalism as the rest of the report reads:

"We urgently need to encourage a culture of intervention. In a healthy society, children are the responsibility not just of their parents, but of the whole community," he will say.

"I'm not talking about taking on a gang of dangerous thugs. I'm talking about treating children and teenagers with respect - with the expectation that, if they are spoken to as reasonable people, they will respond as reasonable people."

It also talks about him consulting young people in his constituency.

I promise to make my next post cheerier and shorter...