Blaenavon World Heritage Youth Ambassadors (United Kingdom)

Youth first, heritage next

It’s obvious enough: heritage, a fortiori an industrial cultural landscape, doesn’t interest young people (from pre-teens to young adults) all that much, and the “formal classroom method” does nothing to help. The strategy adopted here, then, is to empower young people by getting them to have influence, a say and an active role in management of the site. They come to recognise that what they do has value, as they sit on the board of the listed property.

Objectives

Youth empowerment, which means getting them to become self-confident, learn to assert their opinions and develop skills. 

Implementation

Thanks to funding from the National Lottery, they were able to test out various ways of involving young people in finding out what works. This required investment of time and (youth educator) skills, as well as confidence in the abilities of the young people concerned. 

The main rules to bear in mind are:

• Operate in small groups (around 15 young people): aim for quality rather than quantity...which hasn’t prevented some 200 young people from already participating or future extension of the programme to other United-Kingdom sites.
• Youth first (their education), heritage next. Provide them with adapted activities (living experiences for themselves) and let them carry out their own initiatives, even if they at first seem far removed from the subject in hand. That’s how you manage to keep them (18 months on average). You must be aware of their needs (as regards identity construction and sociability) and constraints (classes, extracurricular activities, etc.).
• Involve young people with adults on equal terms. This also requires preparing adults to interact with young people in the right way. 2-hour training sessions on “How to bring young people into your organisation” are also on offer.

Results and perspectives

The result is recognition that what they do has value: 

• they sit on the Blaenavon site’s management board
• they are requested to sit on the National Association’s board

In one young person’s opinion, world heritage was storytelling, not about the town or history, but about the community. 

Download the presentation (Presented at the 2^nd meeting of European World Heritage Associations) 

http://www.visitblaenavon.co.uk/en/Education/YouthAmbassadors/Youth-Ambassadors.aspx  

https://www.facebook.com/worldheritageambassadors/