YouthPower Learning recently released a survey for young people to express their thoughts on safe public spaces for youth. Below are some of their responses:
1. What does "safe public spaces" mean for you?
"A place where youth can feel free to engage, create and collaborate with one another working to improve their communities and build their self confidence."- Victor, Kenya
"It’s the space where we feel freedom and social justice." - Samah, Sudan
"Safe spaces are moments or areas created for groups or individuals where they can express their feelings or opinions and don’t...feel judged."- Brayan, Nicaragua
"What safe spaces mean to me is a progressive supportive environment where young people thrive. [They are] an environment where youth are seen as assets and not problems to be solved, and an environment where young people are active contributors to the development of their communities as changemakers and disruptors. Safes spaces mean a world where young men and women are equipped with the skills that they need for their social-emotional and physical well-being." - Abigail, Nigeria
"A place where I can fully express myself and talk about my understanding of certain ideas and thought processes...but I don’t get judged for it or get labeled or beaten or in certain parts of the world killed for it..." - Al K, Pakistan
2. How important are “safe spaces” in your environment or for your personal situation? (Please describe briefly how you could benefit or have benefited from “safe spaces”)?
"I believe safe spaces can be physical, virtual or web based. Personally, I have managed to create my own little safe space for a few young people in my community, www.oloskythebrand.com, [which] provides young creatives with a platform to showcase their creativity and exhibit their art while at the same time linking them with potential investors; that is an example of a place that ensures safety of creative ideas for the youth and if it can give them a purpose then I will have done my bit to create a safe space for the creative youth of Africa." - Victor, Kenya
"It’s very important to me to have space like this, space to tell my opinions freely and to have a right to participate in discussions making in my environment." - Samah, Sudan
"I am a progressive liberal and I believe in Humanism and Spirituality. I live in the 2nd largest Muslim country in the world. So, its a little difficult to openly say that in a social setting. Social media for a while was a good refuge for me and others like me. It was my quasi safe space, because I met more people like me on Twitter mostly...I learned a lot and met some amazing people when there was no fear of getting outed or hunted down. But now with that safety gone, I have stopped using those platforms and most of those connections/contacts are lost. As I got to talk to more like minded people, that really helped me evolve. I live in a very conservative city and my family is the same. So finding like-minded people helped me evolve and become who I am today...so my quasi safe space as I call it (social media) helped a great deal. My beliefs and ideas were challenged daily and interacting with liked minded individuals helped me broaden my horizon." - Al K, Pakistan
"They are important for the development of ideas as well to build self-confidence." - Brayan, Nicaragua
"Safes spaces lead to youth personal growth. When youth have a sense of belonging and are actively involve in education, employment, or entrepreneurship as well as active policy and decision making it leads to the growth of the community. Which in turn reduces unproductivity, lack of emotional intelligence, and reduces unemployment, conflict, and other negative vices in the environment." - Abigail, Nigeria
3. What elements are important for the successful implementation of “safe spaces”? What needs to be in place?
"[Have] good listeners, confidentiality, and implementation of ideas." - Brayan, Nicaragua
“Intergenerational collaboration…[and by providing] opportunities for participatory learning and development. Enhanced life conditions…life skills, increased economic opportunities and well-structured systems for education, employment, [and] entrepreneurship.”- Abigail, Nigeria
"Safe Space is a very alien concept in my part of the world (Pakistan) but we need it more than ever before...Safe spaces are very important but it will be a real challenge to implement it in a country like Pakistan. Universities are of course a breeding ground for critical thinking and getting challenged for your ideas but implementing it in a country like Pakistan is going to be a challenge. So starting from the universities won’t be a bright idea. There are instances where many elite universities tried to arrange critical thinking sessions but they faced resistance at their campuses and they had to cancel those events." - Al K, Pakistan
"First we must ask the youth what safe spaces mean to them, for it means different things to different people; for some it may be just the plain physical safe space for those that need shelter, for others it may be facilities like libraries, schools, hospitals, for others it may be an enabling environment provided by access to electricity, internet, financing etc. For us to successfully implement safe spaces we must talk to the youth and have it come from them." - Victor, Kenya
4. Do you have any other comments on "safe spaces"?
"Creating safe spaces could be well-measured by creating a supportive environment for young people to feel safe and thrives involves a holistic approach to engaging youth as partners of development." - Abigail, Nigeria
"Yes, I would love to talk at the webinar about safe spaces in the Pakistani context. How difficult it is and how important it is to implement it, because it will save lives." - Al K, Pakistan
"I believe we can provide safe spaces by using innovative ways that collaborate with the youth. I chose to start a website to exhibit young peoples ideas and to give them exposure, through it we have created other safe spaces by hosting leadership talks through a platform called the leadership report, bringing together very many youth from Kenyas slums and allowing them to share ideas on leadership with their local leaders. That is creating a safe space through leadership and creative arts." - Victor, Kenya
5. Feel free to tell us more about yourself in the context of "safe spaces".
"I am an enthusiastic person about all youth issues, I like to tell my opinions and participate in solve that issues so I always claim for intellectual freedom." - Samah, Sudan
"I work with youth and often creating safe spaces allows them to gain confidence and show their most couragous side when taking leadership." - Brayan, Nicaragua
"Personally I am observing major sel-censorship when it comes to expressing myself and talking about certain ideas that I used to be very vocal about. I see a change in myself where I feel like a large part of my personality is in the hibernation mode. Which I really don’t like but if I had a safe space, I would be a very happy whole person :)" - Al K, Pakistan