The Unannounced Future
The unannounced future arrived with devastation to the streets of London, spreading to Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Nottingham, in the form of the riots last August.
It was the most serious civil unrest in a generation. Five people lost their lives and more than 3,000 were arrested.
The Government are talking to the victims and affected local communities, with help of a 4 -people strong committee, but what is even more important is to speak to the perpetrators and rioters in order to understand why it happened.
The causes and consequences of the English Riots 2011, will be examined in a study conducted by The Guardian and The London School of Economics. This powerful combination of journalistic reporting and academic rigour, inspired by an innovative report on ‘the Detroit riots of 1967’, combine the forces of leading academics and experts (LSE) and close to 60 writers and researchers (The Guardian) plus two unique databases compiled by The Guardian during and after the riots. The first database consists of more than 1,100 defendants charged with riot-related offences and the other database contains up to 2,5 million riot related Tweets.
The need for solid evidence and an analysis of the causes of the riots is absolutely crucial for future policy making which, per definition, you would expect to be informed by reality.
And the reality is that if we fail to offer young people hope and opportunity, then this might be one way of making your voice heard.
As one young person said, in the wake of the riots: “If you take away someone’s future, they will have nothing to lose”.
‘Reading The Riots Report’ is due sometime in the beginning to mid December (which is remarkably fast given the enormity of the material), according to Paul Lewis, part of the Core Team for the report, at The Guardian. But while waiting for the answers, the paper have launched one of the most sensible and co-ordinated Christmas Appeals in order to do something about the situation in the immediate.
Under the title of ‘Giving hope to marginalised young people’, they have selected eight charities that specialise in turning around the lives of troubled young people.
I know there has been a lot about The Guardian in this particular blog and very little on Mindroom, although these are Mindroom related issues, but we all need to join them in their ground breaking and hugely important work in securing the answers that might in the end bring back hope and opportunities.
Thanks to them, perhaps the future will be better tomorrow – as the unfortunate Dan Quayle once said.
For more information on the Guardian Christmas Charity Appeal
But just for the record, Mindroom would also be delighted to receive a Christmas donation, as we have no statutory funding .
Last year we helped over 450 children and their families affected by learning difficulties.
http://www.mindroom.org/index.php/get_involved/fundraising/
