At BYC we're committed to challenging the trend for negative stereotypes of young people.

Young people should be empowered to voice their opinions in the media on issues that they feel strongly about and which affect their lives.

Time for Respect

As part of our work to promote positive images BYC supports the Respect campaign, with the online charity YouthNet, to empower you to challenge misrepresentations of young people in the media and in British society as a whole.

Too often we have little chance to comment on issues that we care about, and instead simply get stereotyped.

The Respect Advisory Group

The Respect campaign is youth-led: a group of eight young people decide how the campaign progresses and lobby MPs.

The research by BYC and YouthNet that sparked this campaign involved over 700 young people who gave their views on anti-social behaviour, the media and older people. The results of this research were published in the report The Voice Behind the Hood.
 

The Concerns

• Most young people feel as strongly about anti-social behaviour as older people and do not want to be judged solely on the actions of a few troublemaking individuals.
• 90% of young people denounce anti-social activities and the majority accepts that swearing, arguing and loud music can be anti-social.
• 98% of young people feel that the media always, often or sometimes represents them as anti-social. More than 80% feel they are represented by the media as a group to be feared.
• Almost nine in ten young people are bothered by the way they are represented by the media and 80% believe the way they are portrayed leads to older people respecting them less.
• Nine in ten felt that politicians do not treat young people as equals and feel that the respect politicians expect should be a two-way street.

The Remedies
The report recommended ways for journalists, politicians and everyone else to help address these concerns.

• Journalists should try to balance a negative story about young people with something positive, or at least neutral.
• Young people should be able to comment more on articles in the media about any issue.
• Politicians should encourage open debate with young people by visiting schools, colleges and universities and holding youth surgeries.
• Public sector and voluntary organisations need to create opportunities for older people to interact with younger generations to break down barriers and bridge gaps.

The Evaluation
August 25, 2009 saw the publication of an evaluation report on the Respect campaign and its achievements and challenges so far. YouthNet and BYC commissioned an independent writer to produce the report, with the intention of providing an example of best practice to other organisations working with similar young-people led projects.

Get Active!

Pledge your support!

It's time for us to make the media listen to what we have to say. We can do this by commenting online, writing to editors of newspapers or magazines, or calling into TV or radio programmes. It's our news too.

We need 1000 young people to pledge their support for young voices being heard by visiting Pledgebank or joining the Facebook page.

Celebrities including Dexplicit, Foreign Beggars and the champion boxer Amir Khan have signed up...tell your friends to sign up too and help us make our target!
 

If you feel strongly about this issue and would like to get involved why not join the BYC Online Action Network - a flexible way have your say and be heard.

For more information on the Respect campaign please email BYC.