Staying positive - help shape the narrative

Hi John,

I wanted to follow up with you on a point from Mary's email yesterday.

Experience from other countries indicates that in the coming weeks, there is a risk of young people being cast as 'caring less' about Covid-19 as they may not be at risk to the same extent as older people, and of the media focusing on 'gangs of teenagers hanging around' not taking the social distancing guidelines seriously.

While those of you working in the sector know that such lazy stereotypes of young people are unfair and counterproductive, it is important that we arm journalists with the tools to counteract these harmful narratives, and give them concrete examples of the positive actions young people are taking during this time.

We'll be working to get that message out there, on traditional and social media, but we need your help:
* Please get back to me on [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]?subject=Positive%20actions) with an example you'd like to share. Just a couple of lines describing the positive actions young people are taking, and I'll follow up with you and we can take it from there.

For every small group of young people spotted gathering outdoors there are likely hundreds behind closed doors taking part in initiatives like Kildare Youth Services' Quarantine Festival ([link removed][UNIQID]) , or responding to hashtags like #SelfIsolationHelp ([link removed][UNIQID]) and dropping groceries at the door of elderly neighbours, but we need to make that visible.

It's important that people realise the scale of the sector and how important youth work is in providing alternatives to young people when so many opportunities have been shut down.

I appreciate your help with this, what with everything that's going on.

If you have any questions or ideas on the above, just say the word,

Kind regards,

Daniel

Daniel Meister
Communications Manager
National Youth Council of Ireland

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