Associate feature: Tackling youth unemployment is unfinished business

We should be rightly proud of the work Scotland has undertaken to significantly reduce youth unemployment over the last 10 years.  

During this time, through our 10-year youth employment-focused 14:19 Fund, we have supported a portfolio of 20 charities to help young people to gain the confidence, self-esteem, skills and experience they need to progress into education, employment or training successfully. 

As our fund has matured and the charities we support have developed, the opportunities available to young people have evolved and grown too. Our understanding of what works and what is needed has been transformed. This has enabled organisations to provide more of what young people really want and need, and to be there for those who require support for longer. 

We have seen the ripple effect of supporting one young person on the wider community and it is truly inspiring.

However, we have also learnt that this generation of young people face challenges their parents did not have to deal with, through no fault of their own, often laid out before them and compounded by generations of poverty and disadvantage.

Furthermore, despite the 14:19 Fund supporting over 9,000 young people last year, there are still thousands more young people being referred to our charities for support. There is a clear need for us to continue. Every young person deserves the opportunity for a better future.

We want to have a greater impact on the life chances of more young people than we have ever had before. To do this, we must go deeper, work harder and be even more committed. This is Inspiring Scotland’s 10-year challenge.  It is a challenge to ourselves and we will rise to it, and we need others to rise to it too.  

This feature sponsored by Inspiring Scotland