Pioneering charity Youth Access has launched a major initiative aimed at empowering young people to use their rights to address social injustice. The charity, which has a membership from across the youth sector, said: ‘Young people facing a rising tide of housing, money and mental health problems all too often encounter creaking public services that aren’t responsive to their needs and that fail to uphold their rights … Arguably, no previous generation has experienced a greater need for the skills to navigate “the system” as part of negotiating a successful path to adulthood. Yet few young people are aware of their rights, how to assert them or where to go for advice.’

The initiative brings together a partnership of funders and leading youth advice charities to pioneer Make Our Rights Reality (MORR), a programme to educate and empower young people, support young people to work collectively in their local communities and build a national campaign network of young people speaking up for their rights. It hopes to equip young people (aged 15 to 25) to take control of their problems and improve services in their communities by connecting them with their rights and responsibilities, with youth social action focusing on disadvantaged young people in community settings. The themes of the programme are rights, voice and action.

The programme’s regional delivery partners include the highly acclaimed Norwich-based Mancroft Advice Project (MAP), the Hampshire-based No Limits youth well-being charity, and Greater Manchester’s 42nd Street, an innovative youth mental health charity working in partnership with Liverpool’s Young Persons Advisory Service (YPAS).

LAG director Steve Hynes said: ‘In the last parliament, it wasn’t just legal aid that was cut to the bone; local authority youth services were completely crushed. David Cameron promised much from his Big Society programmes like the National Citizen Service, but delivered little. And there is also a huge crisis in youth mental health. So this MORR programme is exactly what is needed, led and driven by proven youth charities that actively involve young people in everything they do and joining up support, advice, counselling, public legal education and social action.’