Interview by Zhara Kabir- Headstart Intern February 2021
Hi everyone! I’m Zhara Kabir and I am presently an intern in the Education and Youth team at the GLA. The following blog is an interview that I conducted with Jo Hrabi, who is the Youth Empowerment Lead at Cambridge House.
Cambridge House is one of the projects that is supported by the Young Londoners Fund. The Mayor's £45 million Young Londoners Fund is helping children and young people to fulfil their potential, particularly those at risk of getting caught up in crime. It supports a wide range of local community projects providing activities for young Londoners.
Cambridge House’s Youth Empowerment Project is a long-term provision of workshops, 1:1 mentoring, hand-holding, and other specialist advice and support that builds trust, breaks down barriers and creates viable alternative routes for young people that are most at risk.
I find youth work to be vital and instrumental in keeping young Londoners engaged in open communication. I particularly wanted to investigate Jo’s work and how she has adapted it as a result of the pandemic.
Q&A
What did your journey into becoming a youth worker look like?
Jo: I started off volunteering around 10 years ago in my spare time whilst I held down a job in the private sector. I did this because I had quite acute mental health problems in my younger years and I recognised how lucky I was to have a supportive family. This made me think about how young people that don’t have a support network come out the other end of things like that and so I wanted to be one of those people to help. I started volunteering at Cambridge House and over time have become the Youth Empowerment Coordinator.
What inspires and motivates you to do your job?
Jo: This is going to sound so cliché but it’s the young people and their energy, willingness to be so open and their intelligence. I’ve always been someone who enjoys helping others and I feel that I can empathise quite a lot due to my own personal circumstances and it’s just really humbling to be in a position where I can use my own experiences to help others.
How has your work changed during the pandemic?
Jo: I would say we have adapted very well and young people are so tech savvy, so they had no problems adapting quickly. In fact, the feedback from some young people is that they prefer it because they can open up and be emotional in the safety of their own bedrooms. Our workshops are also on zoom and attendance has been high as it’s just a click of a button to join.
What impact has the Young Londoners Fund had at Cambridge House?
Jo: It’s allowed us to continue running the programme and it's as simple as that. Without the 3 years funding pot from the YLF we may have had to close down our programme, so it has been literally everything for us. The security that came with it too was like a breath of fresh air and also the people who work on the YLF team really just get it and they understand youth work but also the complexities that come with it.
How do you think we can engage young people during the pandemic?
Jo: I think there needs to be a more comprehensive directory of youth services that are out there and then that needs to be advertised and easily accessible for the young people to find and utilise. It would take a collaborative effort to shout about youth work and what it can do for young people but I don’t necessarily know what that looks like. The pandemic has stopped us from doing physical outreach work and young people rarely go looking for help so it’s a lot more difficult.
What support do you anticipate youth organisations to need to recover in the next few years?
Jo: Funding is really the only one I can think of and is probably the most needed for a lot of organisations, particularly the local ones that don’t have national funding.
Has the pandemic led to a change in demand for services at Cambridge House?
Jo: Definitely, I have seen a huge decline in a lot of young people’s mental wellbeing. A bigger proportion of the people who were referred to me last year self-harm and sometimes that has a direct correlation to the fact that they can't engage with other services in person. A lot of young people relied on school for an escape from difficult home lives and so without that kind of structure and routine, I am seeing a lot of young people struggle with staying motivated and more generally keeping up with their schoolwork.
Jo Hrabi accepting her award for Youth Professional of the Year 2019 from London Youth
It was great to chat to Jo! She was approachable and exceptionally passionate about her work which made it easy for me to speak to her especially as I am part of today’s youth. I learnt that whilst the pandemic has impacted youth work greatly, Jo ‘s programme has adapted quickly to online communication and so far this has proved to be successful.
To find out more about Cambridge House please visit the website.
For the Young Londoners Fund page please visit the page on our website.