INSTEAD OF US DECLARING HOW TO TEACH THE RIOTERS A LESSON, WE SHOULD BE ASKING 'WHAT CAN I DO TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE?

By Paul Brookhouse
Senior Manager, The Enthusiasm Trust

Following widespread riots that brought mayhem to UK streets, Paul Brookhouse, senior manager at Derby charity Enthusiasm, which works with troubled teenagers, offers his thoughts.

A few weeks on from the terrible scenes of vandalism and thieving in various parts of the country, I can't help but wonder why many of us have so many opinions on why it has happened yet expect others to solve the problems.

If young people really are facing such critical issues, such as poverty, a disengagement from society and a lack of opportunities which is leading to despair, hopelessness, anger and recruited to gangs for a sense of security, identity and belonging, what are we as the rest of society doing about it?

It takes something like the recent events to make us all sit up and ask questions about what is wrong with parts of our society.

Is it the fact that the majority of us are so unaware of some of these major issues faced by young people or perhaps the fact we are so absorbed with our own lives that we choose to ignore them, hoping that they will either go away or become somebody else's problem?

Have we chosen to just accept that society will always have problems and resigned ourselves to having to just tolerate them?

Or is it that it is easier to ignore them, knowing that to really ask deep questions and seek wise responses may lead us to having to do something about them ourselves?

The big clean-up is under way and communities and local councils have swept up the debris, yet I think we tend to do this with our lives: just as the mess is being swept away we brush the events that have rightly shocked us to one side and move on to the next big local or world event.

Our outrage about these events caused us to be morally disgusted and saddened that people in modern-day Britain can behave this way while the rest of the world is watching and wondering what is going on.

But, what happened on those streets is only the tip of the iceberg and it's easy to forget about some of the horrendous things happening to our young people every week, sometimes even every day of the year.

The fact that in recent years, so many young people have been attacked, beaten up, stabbed, shot and, even worse, murdered or gang-raped for being in the wrong area, looking at somebody the wrong way, being in the wrong gang, being seen as a piece of meat or wearing the wrong colour.

The UK's young girls – yes, they are young – being exploited for money, groomed for sex and increasingly boys are also being targeted.

Then there are the ever-increasing numbers of young people living in care, some having nowhere to live and becoming homeless because nobody wants them or because they feel that they have to run away because they can no longer face an abusive or addicted parent.

How about the increasing pressure on young people to conform to a certain way, or their belief that if they don't conform or are different in any way they are not normal? They face being a bullied outcast and can lead to a whole host of eating disorders or the need to self-harm to relieve the pain, anger and hurt, sometimes leading to suicide.

Why does it seem that to grow up not knowing your father is becoming the norm? And yet having both parents in your life having a positive influence in your formative years is becoming increasingly abnormal. For some teenagers they feel a need to have a baby of their own to replace or hide their own craving to be loved.

Or the teenager who is told they are a waste of space and will always be a no-hoper, whose confidence and self-esteem is so low that they can't even look you in the eyes or dare to dream of a future because they feel they are worthless and afraid to fail.

How many of us even know the names of our neighbours or even speak to them, or the elderly lady in our street who has no-one to talk to, or the person on our road who has just lost their job and are struggling to round up enough money to put food on the table for their family?

Maybe instead of our opinionated words and views on how best to deal with our wayward youth and how we think the budget cuts are destroying society, we should ask ourselves one simple question: what can I do to make a difference? Instead we declare what we would do to teach these young people a lesson.

Have we considered what we can do to make a young person feel there is a hope for their future; hope that they can reach their potential; hope they can belong to something; a hope they can identify with something or someone and a hope that they can feel secure?

Yes, society and especially young people need to learn that there are consequences to our actions, but who are they going to learn from if we as society don't take responsibility for people in our own communities?

You might not feel that you are able to do much, but you can volunteer for an organisation trying to make a difference or maybe you run a company which could provide an apprenticeship opportunity for a young person, consider training to be a mentor or role model for the fatherless, maybe give financial support to a charitable organisation.

If all these are beyond you at present, a simple smile or a few words of encouragement or reassurance can go a long way.

While we take stock of the riots and their consequences and try to understand why our young people have such a sense of discontentment, let's remember the words of Martin Luther King Jr: "Life's most persistent and urgent question is, what are you doing for others?"