Autonomy
(Ancient Greek: αὐτονομία autonomia from αὐτόνομος autonomos from αὐτο- auto- "self" and νόμος nomos, "law", hence when combined understood to mean "one who gives oneself one's own law") is a concept found in moral, political, and bioethical philosophy. Within these contexts, it is the capacity of a rational individual to make an informed, un-coerced decision. In moral and political philosophy, autonomy is often used as the basis for determining moral responsibility and accountability for one's actions. Autonomy might refer to biological autonomy, mental autonomy, and or emotional and psychological autonomy.
How access to social rights affects the transition to autonomy of young people? What kind of obstacles which impede the access to social rightscan we identify and which measures are taken locally in order to overcome obstacles?In line with the discussed questions the participants concluded the following:
Accessing the right toeducation
supports the process of becoming autonomous and independent. Education empowers people, supports the development of theircompetences and makes them good life managers that aresocially active and included the societies with feelings of self-esteem and self-motivation. Educated people have ability to make informed choices about different life elements and increase the chances for maximize use of individual potentials and are more likely to have bigger success in accessing and improving in the labour market than people with less or no education.However, lack of funds for quality education, non-inclusive education, (that doesn’t allow access for everyone regardless their disabilities, social status or family background); education system that doesn’t correspond to the recent trend and needs in the employment market and supports thebig gap between the educational and labour market leaves young people in unfavourable risky situations. Some countries try to overcome this by variety of activities to reform the educational systems and increase the quality of education by introducing new improved educational programmes, educational exchange programs between countries which allow young people to see the same things from different prospective, initial positive attitudes towardsrecognition of non-formal education, life-skills development programmes, carrier counselling and entrepreneurship education as well as different scholarships sensitive to different categories of young people.
Accessing the right to healthcare
contributes to prevention, early diagnosis and treatment of different health problems that might affect the life of young people. Some health problems severely affect young people’s entire wellbeing including their acceptance by others and inclusion and participation in their societies and put them in dependent state of other people or the society that has negative effect on their transition to autonomy and employment. It is not news that some health problems are leaving young people stigmatized. Some young people face difficulties accessing the right to healthcare due to the lack of or poorly equipped health services and healthcare providers in their neighbourhoods lack of preventive programmes run in some heighbourhoods, highly expensive treatments and medications, inadequate and poor medical services, judgement and discrimination by the medical staff in situations of certain health conditions related to sexual or reproductive health as well as addiction. It is becoming more obvious that the environments is highly polluted and everyone, including young people, lack asses to non-polluted air, soil, water, food… Some of the variety of activities that are undertaken by different stakeholders include health institutional development indisadvantaged neighbourhoods, social benefits for personal healthcare, claims for universal health insurance system, reduction of the expenses for some health services, treatments and medications, awareness raising about social responsible behaviour or prevention and non-discriminative social responses to some health problems, eco-friendly social policies as well as putting sustainable development and environmental protection at the top of the future development agendas.
Accessing the right to work
accessing decent quality work that assures financial independency is one of the crucial needs for successful transition to autonomy. It is not only the access of work that can support young people’s inclusion into societies and their entire wellbeing but what is also important is accessing rights in work: equal pay for man/women, maternity leave, paid leave, healthy working environment, protection from working hazards, protection of forced labour, working a job that is freely chosen by the individual etc. All this gives opportunities to young people to live a decent quality of happy life where they can enjoy in their working environment and advance in their careers in line with their potential. Accessing desired, decent, protected, secured jobs leads to social cohesion, happiness of young people, reduced criminality and deviant behaviour, less money spent on supporting programmes for unemployed young people, less frustrations and less brain drain. From the other side young people are more enthusiastic and can be more productive then elderly people that way influencing the overall productivity and economic growth of the country. Yet, young people were highly affected by the economic crisis that is on-going in the countries in Europe and facedifferent obstacles in accessing and staying in the labour market that makes them financial instable like lack of adequate secure jobs that are in line with their education or the popular gapbetween education and labour market, low salaries, poor working conditions, unequal pay, young woman discrimination based on their wish to have a family or on their pregnancy etc. What is appreciated in the area of accessing employment is the vocational training and vocational orientation services, professional career guidance and support carrier planning skills and understanding. Solutions: supporting a better mortgage policy, coaching and mentoring, apprenticeship programmes, active labour market policies designed for specific categories of young people (low level of education, young people with disabilities or health problems, young people victims of abuse, young people without parents or parental support, young people from minorities etc.) entrepreneurial education and support for opening young businesses, social protection benefits for unemployed young people.
Accessing the right to housing
being able to have a house is one step closer to being autonomous and independent. Often young people can’t afford to leave their family home after graduating from University/College due to financial instability, poverty and exclusion from labour market.This leaves young people feeling trapped in their parents’ house, without privacy and with a feeling of not having control over their lives.In the area of housing we can detect different good practices that work and support young people’s access to affordable and decent houses measures like better interest rates for mortgages, social housing by the state which is cheaper alternative for young people, state financed housing program, specifically benefits for renovating abandoned houses which aren’t currently in use etc. yet it is obvious that we still need more efforts to prevent young people being homeless od staying their entire life or youth living with their parents.
Accessing the right to security and assistance
supports the transition to autonomy for young people but there are varieties ofchallenges related to it, like: becoming dependant on the social benefits and not being empowered, something that often happens in different countries..Perceived good practices include decentralization of their security and assistance programs that way taking into consideration and addressing local needs, efforts to make social services accessible for all young people, life-skills development and training in the social services as well as providing opportunities like internships, apprenticeship, job shadowing and other carrier development and experience gaining activities, improving the employment of young people in need of social and security assistance by developing a system of benefits for companies that will employ these people as well as creating part time jobs for young people under state protection.
Accessing the right to organize
The sense of belonging to your “tribe” is related to the rightand the possibility of young people to organize themselves on the basis of different criteria. In groups young people feel stronger to advocate and lobby for changes in the policies that might improve their working/living conditions, develop feeling of being connected,included, integrated and improves social and life competences. Young people’s support system is made by different kind of organizations/groups where they express and further develop their identity and the ability and possibility to claim their rights. Some young people face lack of information of the legal frame for the right to organize not just for the sake of employment issues and collective bargaining but also for other needs and interests, lack of sustainability of different organizations/groups, poor and poorly functioningsupport systems. What is considered asbeneficial is introducing programs, which increase sense of belonging and the level of participation of young people toward common challenges. Good practices include making legal frames and conditions to protect the right people to organize, creating and supporting platforms that might support the organization of young people who are interested in certain issues, establishing links with different organizations/groups of young people and authorities.
Accessing the tight to protection against poverty and social exclusion
Youth is a time of life transitions and much uncertainty. Young people are one of the most vulnerable groups in society and face a risk of poverty considerably higher than that faced by most other age groups. The most important predictor of a young person being poor whether they still live with a parent: those who have left home are at a much higher risk of poverty. This risk is particularly high in the first year after leaving home. Poverty and social exclusion make young people lose their autonomy and highly affects any aspect of the young life. If financial assistance were to be made available with the aim of reducing youth poverty, this could most usefully be targeted at those who are in the first year or two of living away from the parental home. Designing programs and community interventions for protection against poverty and exclusion is a great necessity. Employment protects young people from poverty – but getting a job is not enough in itself. Young people must get and keep jobs in order to avoid poverty. Schemes to encourage young adults into work should be designed with this in mind, and evaluated on the basis of their success at keeping young people in work for at least a year.
After the discussions on accessing social rights participants played the Enter DignityLand game, a highly powerful educational tool for learning about social rights with young people produced as part of the ENTER project initiated by the youth sector of the Council of Europe in 2009 aiming at the development of youth policy and youth work responses to situations of exclusion, discrimination and violence affecting young people, particularly in multicultural disadvantaged neighbourhoods. The project promotes young people's access to social rights as a means for their inclusion and participation in society.
Understanding youth employment situation inEurope
Without a tendency to describe in details the unemployment situation in the world, we would like to underline that more than 75 million young people have been reported jobless after the huge economic crisis that happened in the world in the 21 century. Young people are on average nearly three times more likely than adults to be unemployed.As discussed when analysing the access to right to employment young people were highly affected by the economic crisis that is on-going in the countries in Europe and face different obstacles in accessing and staying in the labour market that makes them financial instable like lack of adequate secure jobs that are in line with their education or the popular gap between education and labour market, low salaries, poor working conditions, unequal pay, young woman discrimination based on their wish to have a family or on their pregnancy etc
(Ancient Greek: αὐτονομία autonomia from αὐτόνομος autonomos from αὐτο- auto- "self" and νόμος nomos, "law", hence when combined understood to mean "one who gives oneself one's own law") is a concept found in moral, political, and bioethical philosophy. Within these contexts, it is the capacity of a rational individual to make an informed, un-coerced decision. In moral and political philosophy, autonomy is often used as the basis for determining moral responsibility and accountability for one's actions. Autonomy might refer to biological autonomy, mental autonomy, and or emotional and psychological autonomy.
How access to social rights affects the transition to autonomy of young people? What kind of obstacles which impede the access to social rightscan we identify and which measures are taken locally in order to overcome obstacles?In line with the discussed questions the participants concluded the following:
Accessing the right toeducation
supports the process of becoming autonomous and independent. Education empowers people, supports the development of theircompetences and makes them good life managers that aresocially active and included the societies with feelings of self-esteem and self-motivation. Educated people have ability to make informed choices about different life elements and increase the chances for maximize use of individual potentials and are more likely to have bigger success in accessing and improving in the labour market than people with less or no education.However, lack of funds for quality education, non-inclusive education, (that doesn’t allow access for everyone regardless their disabilities, social status or family background); education system that doesn’t correspond to the recent trend and needs in the employment market and supports thebig gap between the educational and labour market leaves young people in unfavourable risky situations. Some countries try to overcome this by variety of activities to reform the educational systems and increase the quality of education by introducing new improved educational programmes, educational exchange programs between countries which allow young people to see the same things from different prospective, initial positive attitudes towardsrecognition of non-formal education, life-skills development programmes, carrier counselling and entrepreneurship education as well as different scholarships sensitive to different categories of young people.
Accessing the right to healthcare
contributes to prevention, early diagnosis and treatment of different health problems that might affect the life of young people. Some health problems severely affect young people’s entire wellbeing including their acceptance by others and inclusion and participation in their societies and put them in dependent state of other people or the society that has negative effect on their transition to autonomy and employment. It is not news that some health problems are leaving young people stigmatized. Some young people face difficulties accessing the right to healthcare due to the lack of or poorly equipped health services and healthcare providers in their neighbourhoods lack of preventive programmes run in some heighbourhoods, highly expensive treatments and medications, inadequate and poor medical services, judgement and discrimination by the medical staff in situations of certain health conditions related to sexual or reproductive health as well as addiction. It is becoming more obvious that the environments is highly polluted and everyone, including young people, lack asses to non-polluted air, soil, water, food… Some of the variety of activities that are undertaken by different stakeholders include health institutional development indisadvantaged neighbourhoods, social benefits for personal healthcare, claims for universal health insurance system, reduction of the expenses for some health services, treatments and medications, awareness raising about social responsible behaviour or prevention and non-discriminative social responses to some health problems, eco-friendly social policies as well as putting sustainable development and environmental protection at the top of the future development agendas.
Accessing the right to work
accessing decent quality work that assures financial independency is one of the crucial needs for successful transition to autonomy. It is not only the access of work that can support young people’s inclusion into societies and their entire wellbeing but what is also important is accessing rights in work: equal pay for man/women, maternity leave, paid leave, healthy working environment, protection from working hazards, protection of forced labour, working a job that is freely chosen by the individual etc. All this gives opportunities to young people to live a decent quality of happy life where they can enjoy in their working environment and advance in their careers in line with their potential. Accessing desired, decent, protected, secured jobs leads to social cohesion, happiness of young people, reduced criminality and deviant behaviour, less money spent on supporting programmes for unemployed young people, less frustrations and less brain drain. From the other side young people are more enthusiastic and can be more productive then elderly people that way influencing the overall productivity and economic growth of the country. Yet, young people were highly affected by the economic crisis that is on-going in the countries in Europe and facedifferent obstacles in accessing and staying in the labour market that makes them financial instable like lack of adequate secure jobs that are in line with their education or the popular gapbetween education and labour market, low salaries, poor working conditions, unequal pay, young woman discrimination based on their wish to have a family or on their pregnancy etc. What is appreciated in the area of accessing employment is the vocational training and vocational orientation services, professional career guidance and support carrier planning skills and understanding. Solutions: supporting a better mortgage policy, coaching and mentoring, apprenticeship programmes, active labour market policies designed for specific categories of young people (low level of education, young people with disabilities or health problems, young people victims of abuse, young people without parents or parental support, young people from minorities etc.) entrepreneurial education and support for opening young businesses, social protection benefits for unemployed young people.
Accessing the right to housing
being able to have a house is one step closer to being autonomous and independent. Often young people can’t afford to leave their family home after graduating from University/College due to financial instability, poverty and exclusion from labour market.This leaves young people feeling trapped in their parents’ house, without privacy and with a feeling of not having control over their lives.In the area of housing we can detect different good practices that work and support young people’s access to affordable and decent houses measures like better interest rates for mortgages, social housing by the state which is cheaper alternative for young people, state financed housing program, specifically benefits for renovating abandoned houses which aren’t currently in use etc. yet it is obvious that we still need more efforts to prevent young people being homeless od staying their entire life or youth living with their parents.
Accessing the right to security and assistance
supports the transition to autonomy for young people but there are varieties ofchallenges related to it, like: becoming dependant on the social benefits and not being empowered, something that often happens in different countries..Perceived good practices include decentralization of their security and assistance programs that way taking into consideration and addressing local needs, efforts to make social services accessible for all young people, life-skills development and training in the social services as well as providing opportunities like internships, apprenticeship, job shadowing and other carrier development and experience gaining activities, improving the employment of young people in need of social and security assistance by developing a system of benefits for companies that will employ these people as well as creating part time jobs for young people under state protection.
Accessing the right to organize
The sense of belonging to your “tribe” is related to the rightand the possibility of young people to organize themselves on the basis of different criteria. In groups young people feel stronger to advocate and lobby for changes in the policies that might improve their working/living conditions, develop feeling of being connected,included, integrated and improves social and life competences. Young people’s support system is made by different kind of organizations/groups where they express and further develop their identity and the ability and possibility to claim their rights. Some young people face lack of information of the legal frame for the right to organize not just for the sake of employment issues and collective bargaining but also for other needs and interests, lack of sustainability of different organizations/groups, poor and poorly functioningsupport systems. What is considered asbeneficial is introducing programs, which increase sense of belonging and the level of participation of young people toward common challenges. Good practices include making legal frames and conditions to protect the right people to organize, creating and supporting platforms that might support the organization of young people who are interested in certain issues, establishing links with different organizations/groups of young people and authorities.
Accessing the tight to protection against poverty and social exclusion
Youth is a time of life transitions and much uncertainty. Young people are one of the most vulnerable groups in society and face a risk of poverty considerably higher than that faced by most other age groups. The most important predictor of a young person being poor whether they still live with a parent: those who have left home are at a much higher risk of poverty. This risk is particularly high in the first year after leaving home. Poverty and social exclusion make young people lose their autonomy and highly affects any aspect of the young life. If financial assistance were to be made available with the aim of reducing youth poverty, this could most usefully be targeted at those who are in the first year or two of living away from the parental home. Designing programs and community interventions for protection against poverty and exclusion is a great necessity. Employment protects young people from poverty – but getting a job is not enough in itself. Young people must get and keep jobs in order to avoid poverty. Schemes to encourage young adults into work should be designed with this in mind, and evaluated on the basis of their success at keeping young people in work for at least a year.
After the discussions on accessing social rights participants played the Enter DignityLand game, a highly powerful educational tool for learning about social rights with young people produced as part of the ENTER project initiated by the youth sector of the Council of Europe in 2009 aiming at the development of youth policy and youth work responses to situations of exclusion, discrimination and violence affecting young people, particularly in multicultural disadvantaged neighbourhoods. The project promotes young people's access to social rights as a means for their inclusion and participation in society.
Understanding youth employment situation inEurope
Without a tendency to describe in details the unemployment situation in the world, we would like to underline that more than 75 million young people have been reported jobless after the huge economic crisis that happened in the world in the 21 century. Young people are on average nearly three times more likely than adults to be unemployed.As discussed when analysing the access to right to employment young people were highly affected by the economic crisis that is on-going in the countries in Europe and face different obstacles in accessing and staying in the labour market that makes them financial instable like lack of adequate secure jobs that are in line with their education or the popular gap between education and labour market, low salaries, poor working conditions, unequal pay, young woman discrimination based on their wish to have a family or on their pregnancy etc
Check out what these youth workers think on this
|