HIGHLIGHTING the good work of young people and finding funds to create new and better services will be the priority of the YMCA, according to its new head of youth services.
Norbert Marjolin, who joined the charity last month, is hoping to use his 35 years' experience in youth work to build on the success of the YMCA's work in the community.
The 54-year-old, who has worked for six local authorities as well as voluntary and charity organisations, said he wants to empower young people to get involved in the Reigate and Redhill YMCA's services.
"I believe in the participation of young people," he said. "It's not just about the activities, it's about the decision making for them. I want to look at the good things we're doing and the services we've got and look at where we can build on those. One of the most important things is to speak to young people and get good communication lines between young people and the people who run the services they use."
Mr Marjolin also hopes to improve the image of young people and wants to educate adults about how to deal with them, especially when they do something wrong.
He said one of the biggest barriers for young people is adults themselves.
"I say that tongue in cheek, but adults are the biggest barrier," he said. "In this day and age when young people get bad publicity for anti-social behaviour, we need to look at how adults respond.
"Youth work starts the basis for them [young people] to challenge adults and challenge their ideas. We want them to be able to make decisions, campaign, have a debate with an adult or with someone else and agree to differ with people."
With a background in sports and music, the new youth services boss says using the Olympic legacy, and particularly the legacy of the Paralympics, to promote youth services is a major motivation for him, despite funding cuts – although he says youth work has been suffering austerity for years.
"The biggest challenge for me will be how we source our current services and how we build on those. We need new funding schemes because we want to keep all our services, but we also want to build on the services and do them better.
"[Funding cuts] are always going to be a challenge but austerity in youth services has been around for 30 years so we're used to it."
He added: "Everyone is still motivated by the Olympics, particularly disabled sports. That's been such a success. I'm really proud for what we've done with the Paralympics. The world was looking upon us and that's the legacy we've got to carry on."
