W4 Youth appeals to Chiswick audience to help them combat youth loneliness

Jeremy Vine talks to young people from W4 Youth at the panel discussion on youth loneliness organised by the charity’s director Sally Chacatté

Problem of loneliness most acute amongst young people

Loneliness is a modern-day problem we choose to ignore, Nina Kelly told an audience at Chiswick Cinema on Tuesday 12 May.

Nina, CEO of a charity called Safe New Futures, was one of a panel invited by W4 Youth to discuss loneliness among young people. Also on the panel was the Director of W4 Youth Sally Chacatté and MP for Hammersmith & Chiswick Andy Slaughter.

Almost half of adults in the UK reported feeling lonely, Nina told Jeremy Vine, chairing the panel. In a 2022 survey for the Office For National Statistics almost half admitted they ‘occasionally’, ‘sometimes’, ‘often’ or ‘always’ felt lonely.

The problem is especially acute amongst young people. Three in ten millennials said they ‘always feel lonely’.

Nina told the audience we have a stereotypical image of a lonely little old lady, but in fact people under the age of 30 are the most lonely age group: 16–29-year-olds are twice as likely to be chronically lonely than over 70s, and it affects their mental health and levels of anxiety in particular.

“It’s a problem that’s crept up on us over a number of years”, said Andy Slaughter. “Adults don’t think about it from a child’s perspective. Young people are really struggling; it’s an endemic problem”.

The Covid pandemic meant children were isolated and their isolation is exacerbated by social media.

“We are now very self-focused”, said Sally.

While the Government is looking at banning mobiles in schools, said Andy, they realised this was “just the tip of the iceberg”.

Jeremy Vine talks to Sally Chacatté, Nina Kelly and Andy Slaughter

Loneliness is not something we admit to

At the beginning of the session the panel was joined by a youth squad from W4 Youth, who Jeremy interviewed about what a difference being able to go to a youth club made to them. He asked a couple of them if they were aware of loneliness as an issue amongst young people – whether they or their friends ever felt lonely, and they said ‘no’.

This was a typical reaction, said Nina.

“Young people, if you ask them ‘are you lonely?’ they’ll say ‘no’; if you ask them ‘do you know anyone lonely’ they’ll say ‘no’. But if you ask them how they feel, they will say ‘I feel anxious, depressed, I feel I don’t have a tribe where I belong’.

“People don’t use the word ‘loneliness'”.

Her charity has put together several White Papers on the subject and has a podcast which explores loneliness and mental health.

‘That sense of feeling alone can feel shameful, embarrassing, as if there is something terribly wrong with us and that somehow we have brought this terrible condition on to ourselves’, she wrote in the introduction to her paper Loneliness and its wider effects.

Guests arriving for the event

“I lost both my parents at the age of eight”

Nina became something of an expert on the subject initially through her own experience, after losing both her parents in a hotel fire when she was just eight years old. She was sent to live with a family in another country ‘who were not related and who didn’t even want another child thrust into their midst!

‘The sense of being alone was palpable and that feeling can easily be triggered later in life at times of trauma, isolation or when battling through difficulties’.

She told the panel her salvation was in youth groups:

“I enjoyed my school and found youth groups”.

Football session at W4Youth

“We live in this Chiswick bubble, but there are some really spicy things going on in our community”

Sally Chacatté also told of her experience of the personal tragedy which led to her setting up W4 Youth. Her son was shot in the face 17 years ago. He is now a healthy and happy adult, but the injury and its traumatising mental effects devastated his life and that of his family over a long period.

He had been a student at Chiswick School when he was shot. He went to a friend’s house in Alexandra Gardens where there was a gang of youths and he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“We live in this Chiswick bubble, but there are things going on we don’t know about” she told the audience. “There are some really spicy things going on in our community”.

She set up W4Youth in Southfields Recreation ground to give young people something to do after school and now they are open seven days a week and have between 30 and 50 young people going there each evening, girls and boys, to play football, basketball, table tennis, and to do street dance and arts and craft activities. They are now fundraising to build a permanent centre.

Street dance by W4Youth

Youth provision massively cut

Youth provision has been massively cut.

“Three quarters of it has disappeared”, Andy Slaughter said. “There is this extraordinary disconnect between not knowing the value of youth centres”.

He still met MPs in Parliament who questioned what difference a game of ping pong could make to whether or not a teenager chose to get involved in crime.

“A game of ping pong isn’t just a game of ping pong”, said Sally.

“It’s the conversations they have. They need to connect with other young people but also older young people and older adults. Coaches have lived experience”.

One of their coaches readily admitted he was “on the wrong path” before he discovered the youth centre and started working with them, she said. The youth club is making a real difference to young people’s lives.

“We know what to do because we’ve done it before, and the resources are beginning to be there”, Andy added.

Jeremy Vine interviewing young people from W4Youth; Cllr Ron Mushiso asking the panel a question

Raising money for a permanent youth club building

TR, one of the young people who uses the youth hub, told Jeremy Vine how much he appreciated the work Sally had put in to set up the club:

“It’s nearly impossible to not socialise at the club.

“Sally didn’t have to do this, she did it out of the kindness of her heart. Did it because she saw so much hate. It was really brave”.

At the session were local councillors and people involved with young people in this area: Cllr Ron Mushiso, who is a teacher, Sally Stephens from Brentford FC, former MP Mary Macleod, head teacher of Chiswick School Laura Ellener.

There are several ways in which Sally hopes members of the audience will now promote W4Youth and what they are trying to achieve: to raise the initial £80,000 seed funding goal to reach the planning stage, and ultimately £1.75 million to build the centre:

• Introduce us to individuals, funders, or organisations who may be able to help us raise vital funds
• Introduce us to people who can help us amplify awareness of W4 Youth and our mission
• Introduce us to professionals, advisors, or businesses who may be willing to offer expertise, guidance, or services to help bring this vision to life

If you are able to help with any of the above, you can contact Sally at: w4youth@yahoo.co.uk

w4youth.org.uk

Audience members

“A voice for positivity in the fractured world we live in”

Chris Parker, Programme and Marketing Manager for the cinema, told The Chiswick Calendar the cinema was delighted to host the panel:

‘As someone from a very different background to the relative luxury we have here at least on the top level in Chiswick, it means a huge deal to me personally to see engaging work being done to support young people, address the attention economy and online toxicity, and establish a voice for positivity in the fractured world we live in.

“We’re so in awe of Sally and her team’s commitment and will be proud champions of their work and message”.