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Making positive changes and getting kids offline
Local TV
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13/05/2025
Nirushan, a director at a youth forum in Cardiff says that young people need positive influences in their community, not influencers in online communities.
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00:00
So I work at the Youth Forum, it's a space for children and young people to gather in
00:06
my local neighbourhood in Cardiff, in Grinch Town, and it's a space for young people to
00:13
find themselves, take part in activities and make a difference.
00:17
Young people nowadays have grown up with the internet at their fingertips.
00:20
From a young age, young people are connected across the world, and with the positives it
00:24
can bring, there are countless negatives on top of that too.
00:28
Online spaces can be daunting for parents and their children, and the influences and
00:32
opinions shared around can be damaging to young people.
00:35
So community groups are trying to bring those young people into spaces that can be a positive
00:39
in the real world, and away from what happens online.
00:43
And Nirushan says that he can see the impact himself and his group has, saying that young
00:47
people want to make a real tangible difference to their communities.
00:51
It's interesting because I think, you know, especially in the last few years, I think the
00:57
space online has become increasingly polarised, lots of very loud, powerful voices that are
01:04
coming through.
01:04
But I think what we're really seeing is that a lot of young people that are coming to us,
01:09
or wanting to take part in our activities, actually want to make a positive change in their neighbourhood,
01:16
and are looking for inspiration, not in those online spaces, but actually more locally, in their own
01:22
networks, in their own relationships, in their own neighbourhood.
01:25
I want to understand, actually, that the world that they're growing up in, that they can make
01:31
that tangible difference.
01:32
The National Lottery have played their part in communities across Wales and the rest of the UK.
01:37
And Nirushan's Youth Forum have a space to enact positive change for the young people who are a part of it.
01:42
And he says that having the space is vitally important to his local community.
01:46
Yeah, so the National Lottery Community Fund supported us in giving us the bid to set up a community building
01:54
through a building communities grant, alongside an awards program to set up a local youth forum.
02:04
All of that allowed us to, for our day to day, to set up a building that was for everyone to use in our
02:12
local community. So it's in Graveshans called the Gravesh Pavilion. And it's essentially a space where
02:17
lots of different activities take place, from art, sports, music, dance, anything you can think of,
02:23
you can hire out the space. But within that, there's also a space for a youth forum that runs independently.
02:29
Nirushan says that it's important to remember that young people don't always just blindly follow
02:34
what they see online, and they understand a lot of the nuance of opinions that they read.
02:39
He says that young people just need a space to share and collaborate on their thoughts,
02:42
without all the noise of online spaces.
02:45
I think more often than not, though, I think young people are super aware of people's,
02:51
why people are saying what they are, what's driving them.
02:55
Much more nuanced than what people might seem that they think young people are consuming.
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