Disaffected Youngsters

Over the past four years I have been working with disaffected young people here in inner city Liverpool. Every Monday morning I feel as if I am stepping into a totally different world from the one I inhabit at home or church. Their world is one of drugs and violence. Most have been in trouble with the law, some on numerous occasions.

People tell me that they are failures. I am no expert, but it strikes me that it is we that have failed. For years we have been trying to address the problem of these children, but instead of making things better they have only become worse. Numbers of young people like these are increasing at an alarming rate. Social Workers, Police and Government seem powerless to do anything. Packs of young people roam our streets and they are becoming increasingly violent.

We try to offer things but the thing that strikes me most is their lack of interest in anything other than their hum-drum existence. Many of my youngsters have no idea of even what day it is, let alone the month or the year. Ask them what they did the night before and they can't remember. Call me cynical, but I have come to the stage when if anyone tells me they have an answer I tend not to believe them.


Perhaps the real answer lies in prayer. Instead of critcising them we should pray for them. We should be humble enough to admit that we do not have answers and we need a power greater than ourselves.

However, that prayer has to be selfless for we are not praying for them to become 'good little Christians', rather we are asking the author of love to love them and lift them out of the despair and hopelessness and give them meaning and direction whether they turn to Christ or not. After all, they are individuals created in the image of God, even if they want to hide it under a hood.