I set myself a couple of very achievable New Year’s Resolutions this year:
- To no longer do things that terrify me and instead find joy and peace. More nature, fewer conferences
- To stay put in the north more often and stop jumping on LNER trains to London – there’s enough work to do up here and train food is really bad…
So I was disappointed in my own lack of resolve when recently I found myself on a terrifying purple-tinged stage at The Guildhall in London, charged with giving the main keynote of the day.
In short, the speech went well.. I forgot some of the main things I was going to say (I always do) and ad-libbed wildly when my brain went blank. I used my new favourite slide about Imposter Syndrome and the fact some people don’t have it, at all. 
I also shared a powerful story shared by Lisa about a young boy caught on Oldham video doorbell stealing a pint of milk in the middle of the night and the absolute barrage of scornful social media condemnation he received, with not one compassionate critical thinker in the Facebook comments, wondering why a child is stealing milk in the middle of the night and having some genuine concern for him and his family.
I left the stage feeling proud but this was short lived.
One of the themes to my talk was channelling Aaron Burr from Hamilton and demanding to be ‘in the room where it happens’ . This room being where policy makers and funders and strategic planner and politicians dream up the visions, processes and guardrails that determine how we all will live our lives – soar or sink.
For years now,
I’ve been doing my best to try and chip away at some of the harshest societal impacts on working class young people. I’ve been a teacher, and tried to call out toxicity and ensure that my classrooms were sanctuaries of care and support.
I’ve been a foster carer and constantly tried to call out a system perfectly designed to silence young people and those who seek to highlight the lack of love and care for those who need it most.
I’ve founded several beautiful organisations and supported incredible staff in working alongside young people ready to step up and be seen and heard leading change.
We’ve won awards, so many awards,
been featured in print, in film, on the news and met leaders everywhere, who pat me/us on the back warmly and tell us how we’re the fabric of society and how jolly lucky the UK is to have us.
But still, as I came off the stage I faced the cold realisation that despite over 25 years of working directly with young people who are often in need of care, support, resources and hope – I’m no nearer to ‘the room where it happens’ that I was in my twenties.
I’m now the tasty warm up act in the Green room before they go off and do the serious work. It was a sobering thought and one I’m still sitting with and trying not to wriggle out of the discomfort too quickly.
As we all recoil with horror at a society where 12 year olds can take a machete to a stranger in a park, there is a real need to ask the next question which is how serious are we about working to ensure no child feels that route is a viable life choice.
There’s a stark choice between trying to affect change in rooms with ancient, thick, resistant walls and building something crooked, collaborative, homemade and loved, on the other side of the town.
These walls we’ve been trying to destroy are never going to crumble from the outside. Smashing them down just isn’t effective and exhausts those wielding the sledgehammer. Beseeching for social justice is dehumanising and demeaning AND doesn’t work.
The old ideas now need to die, their custodians to grow old and weak, for the life-blood of our constant attention to be denied to them.
Time to leave them in the dark with no audience, ignored entirely, and to create our own new rooms, with a pulsating global soundtrack and so many obvious and ingenious ways in.
I have to start using the remaining embers of my energy for the creation of the new. The real task is to light up the rooms that have yet to feel and taste power.
I’m complicit in this and so I need to add a new, Summer 2024 resolution:
Reimagine our future. Be that room. Make things happen.
Words: Ruth Ibegbuna
