“Impact of Youth Work on Community Involvement” Research: Traditional Involvement Methods Are Transforming

We interviewed Anıl Derkuş and Nilay Küme about Community Volunteers Foundation’s (TOG) research called “Impact of Youth Work on Community Involvement”.

What was the starting point of the research?

Nilay Küme: Our work area is youth; that’s why, our starting point was the youth’s community involvement. We have been working on it for many years but we needed statistical data. On the other hand, political and community involvement have different meanings; they are changeable. There are many researches saying the youth is not interested in social issues, they don’t use the means to involve in politics; however, the young people say the contrary.

As far as I understood, you think different about youth’s involvement in social or political issues.

Anıl Derkuş: Exactly! When we look at the previous researches, we see the young people’s participation in politics is very low. It is the same in our research. This is a common ground. However, this fact points to something else. Being indifferent to politics is not because the young people are not interested at all. We don’t accept it. That’s why; we used qualitative research methods as well as quantitative ones and did face to face interviews. It was surprising to find that they are not indifferent at all; they consciously choose to keep away from politics. This is the point our research differs from the others.

What pieces of advice did this research give you?

Anıl Derkuş: Young people do not want to be the show case of political parties or traditional institutions. Each stakeholder should try to open unconventional involvement methods and rejuvenate their old ways.

Nilay Küme: We cannot regard the youth as the savior of our future. They want to be acknowledged as individuals. They say they can do many things, but society regards it as a threat. We need to make some room for them to turn their energy into social benefit. Institutions should be aware of differences and develop policies accordingly.