Wednesday 18 June 2008

The Global Credit Crunch

The credit crunch is hitting the world hard. Prices of everyday items are going up, prices for petrol are rising and so on and so on. I don’t want to look at this from the affect this has on the economy or the general public, I want to look at this from the affect that it has on young people achieving their dreams.

When there is a global credit crunch the government have less money to invest in youth related projects. A big source of income for the government is based on the spending of the general public and when they aren’t spending it hurts the economy which the government have to support. Unfortunately funding and spending on youth projects is way down the list of priorities when governments do budgets so this means that youth projects supported by the government or by other funding bodies disappear or run a smaller service due to the lack of money. These youth services could be anything from art to sport projects.

Then we have youth charities which rely on donations to keep running. During a global credit crunch the public have less money so their income from donations dwindles and again affects the way in which they can operate. Similar to this we have youth organisations which require their members or the families of their members to pay a fee or a subscription to keep the organisation going. Because these organisations rely so heavily on subscriptions the inability of just a couple of families to pay fees could make a huge difference to the service they provide. The costs of running youth organisations are going up but because of the situation of their members many youth organisations can’t raise their fees.

We also have to look closer to home. If the family budget is tighter with more money spent on everyday things it means there is less money for parents to spend to help their children reach their dreams. This could be anything like buying a new pair of football boots, taking a child to an audition or paying for a child to attend a club.

In these times it is stories like that of George Sampson who won ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ become more common place. George performed dance routines on the streets of Manchester to raise money to put petrol in his parents car to get to shows and auditions because his family couldn’t afford to take him otherwise. Then in one night his life changed as he won £100,000 to help his mum pay her mortgage.

George wasn’t the first person to fight through financial adversity to achieve their dreams and won’t be the last. Young people and their families need to now be more creative with their thoughts and ideas and need to do more research on how they can help their young child to achieve their dreams on a shoestring budget as believe you me there are ways and it can be easily done. Buying someone the best guitar doesn’t make them the best guitarist. If you have talent and can find a way of showcasing it then you have a great chance of achieving greatness no matter what your financial situation is.

Adam Sibley
Founder of the Talented Young People organisation
www.talentedyoungpeople.com
"Envisage it, Believe it, Achieve it!"

http://www.talentedyoungpeople.blogspot.com

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