Leanna Byrne | Editor
The Trinity youth activist group Youth Lockout have changed their name to the Trinity Youth Assembly (TYA) and drawn up a charter after a series of meetings that aimed to make the group more organised.
The charter states that TYA is a group “based out of Trinity College Dublin” and their aim is to “politicise and mobilise young people in Ireland in response to the youth crisis”.
The organisation intends to have a grassroots organisational structure that will “reclaim a voice for young people through indirect and direct action”.
According to the group, the youth crisis does not just refer to the hikes in fees or cuts to education services, but it also includes the internship culture, the scarcity of affordable housing, cuts to education and social services, and youth unemployment.
Members of TYA will be attending the Young People’s Assembly this Saturday in Liberty Hall in a bid to get more students who would not consider themselves politically affiliated to become part of the conversation about the youth crisis.
“The political groups might already have ideas of what should happen, but we’re more concerned with opening up space for new ideas and approaches,” said active member of TYA, Tommy Gavin. “Personally, I don’t think the answer to the youth crisis is to shift cuts away from young people to middle [income] Ireland or even necessarily more tax for the rich. It’s deeper than that, we need to go back to first principles and talk about what values we, as members of Irish society, want our society to reflect.”
When asked whether or not TYA will be engaging with Trinity College Students’ Union (TCDSU), Gavin remarked that the perception of TCDSU is that they spend most of their time and energy dedicated to the provision of student services.
“It’s great that we have them and they are efficiently provided,” he explained. “However, there has been a strong reluctance within the Students’ Union over the past few years to engage in political advocacy beyond the realm of grant cuts and fee hikes. To campaign hard against student cuts but ignore other issues it can take a stand on, reproductive rights for women for example, necessarily puts the SU in a bubble.”
