Neither In Education Nor In Workforce: The File on NEET Youth…
“Action is Required According to the Reasons of Young People Being NEET”

In our “Neither In Education Nor In Workforce: The File on NEET Youth” this week, we talked to Hasan Oğuzhan and Ela Evliyaoğlu from Youth Organizations Forum (Go-For) about their work and their observations about young people. Go-For General Coordinator Hasan Oğuzhan who stated that they asked the question 'which young people?' when they were asked about the problems of the youth says: “There will be no solutions to the problems of NEET youth in a macro level without asking “which NEET youth?”. Whatever causes the young people to become NEET concerning their problems and identities separately, actions must be taken about them. ” 

Can we get to know you first?

Hasan Oğuzhan Aytaç: I am responsible for the overall coordination of the Youth Organizations Forum. I have been working on youth theme for about 6 years. I had the experience of working with private youth groups under state protection and with different youth groups in Turkey field. With Go-For, I’ve focused more on working on national and local youth policy and rights.

Ela Evliyaoğlu: I work as a capacity building responsible at Go-For. I had worked with young women in Kader Ankara for five years before. I am trying to bring my experience there together with the dynamics of mixed youth groups here.

Could you tell us a little bit about the work you carry out? Who is your target audience?

Hasan Oğuzhan Aytaç: Youth Organizations Forum, as the name suggests, is a network where youth organizations come together and which’s target audience is youth organizations. Youth organizations coming together under this network are working to establish a written and inclusive youth policy in Turkey and to establish a structure that will enable the implementation and monitoring of the youth policy which we call the National Youth Council. Go-For is now accepted by the European Youth Forum as the National Youth Council of Turkey, but our intention is to build this structure on an official basis by establishing a public-NGO cooperation in Turkey.

Youth Organizations Forum has an agenda to build this structure and to strengthen the rights-based working capacities of youth organizations while the national youth policy struggle continues. Youth organizations forum produces youth policies and defends youth rights. We want every youth organization to be its own subject and take action regarding the problems and agendas that concern it.

Who and which age groups are among the target group of youth organizations included in Go-For?

Hasan Oğuzhan Aytaç: Since youth works in Turkey starts mostly at universities, the target group of youth organizations is mainly young people who are among formal education. What we struggle the most is to define young people with age, because this definition reproduces a policy about youth being dynamic and energetic. We always avoid putting young people in the age scale, but since it is easy for us to define it more clearly as well, we accept the 18-30 age range that the European Youth Forum also accepts as “young”. In addition, we are aware that adolescent studies between the ages of 15-18 are also included in youth studies. There is a 35 year of age debate in both the United Nations and in the European Youth Forum, and we follow those discussions as well.

Have you heard of the NEET category which is described as “not existing among education, employment or vocational training”? Is there such a group among your target audience? 

Ela Evliyaoğlu: We are aware of NEET. As Go-For, we attend research and opinion meetings on NEET. Although breakdowns such as education, gender, ethnicity are more or less known, NEET is a very difficult mass to reach. Because it holds many different groups together. As the Youth Organizations Forum, we intend to reach this group because we have an aim about inclusion. We cannot say that we have reached them now. But we want to organize the young audience who are not represented and want to include them in Go-For by strengthening them in which a way they can impress their own needs. It is among our goals to bring together youth groups that are not organized or who are organized but who don’t have sufficient resources as well as the ones who have not been able to announce their capacity, and to make them gain basic organizational skills and to include them in the youth organizations forum by providing them with enough funding to keep up.

Do you have the opportunity to meet these young people on the field? According to your observations, do you think NEET youth has features or problems that differ from others?

Ela Evliyaoğlu: Turkey ranks first among the OECD countries in Europe on the population of women and girls. So, we should also mention the gender factor here. Young girls who stay home, who are included in the workforce at home, are actually a force, but we don’t recognize them. For some young men, there is actually employment but it is informal. There is a group that cannot be involved in any education or jobs because of their military statuses. There is also a group that cannot work due to disability or illness, and cannot be included in education. There are young women at home who take care of a family member with a disability or illness. One of the things that caught my attention is that lately in Europe they have created a category called discouraged young people. It should not be denied that such a group exists as well.

There is a group who wants to find a job but can’t. There are young people who are not included in formal education but they want to serve their internships. The state defines internship as applied training as part of education. If the program you are studying does not have such an obligation, it does not include the voluntary internship which people attend to learn about the job. So it is necessary to employ these people like a full-time employee or they work informally. Because when looking for a job, five years of experience is required. You will have to make that five years of accumulation without any guarantee or status.

How were the NEET youth affected by the Covid-19 crisis?

Hasan Oğuzhan Aytaç: We are currently working on a mapping system which will open soon. We consider filtering the problems within the framework of youth rights. We want to reflect the issues such as the deprivation of the right to accommodation, the deprivation of the right to travel or the loss of the rights of many young people working as casual employees, and the problems of the young people who have troubles in the tenant-landlord relationships. We will map city by city, district by district and we will share this in public. We will make all this data transparent for NGOs, local administrations and public bodies who want to embrace this issue and take action.

While creating this action plan, there has been a lot of information coming to the youth organizations forum. We know that there are already some actions taken regarding insured employees. There is a short-time working allowance, there is state aid, but there is a huge mass working informally both within the group which we can evaluate as NEET, and among other youth groups. So we got a lot of emails about these job losses. We are in a process where Credit and Dormitories Institution dormitories are currently used as quarantine areas. Some young people there cannot return to their families or don’t want to go back. They started to produce temporary accommodation solutions. They try to survive by staying at their friends’ houses or without rent. We can now observe the major effects of the crisis on housing and employment.

Ela Evliyaoğlu: It would not be right to say this as Go-For’s observation, but it is my personal observation that people with disabilities who need medical support cannot access rights and services due to their disability and thus, facing major problems.

So what do you think are the solutions to NEET youth’s problems? What can be done with whom?

Hasan Oğuzhan Aytaç: When we are asked about the needs of young people we ask “Which young people?” back. There will be no solutions to the problems of NEET youth in a macro level without asking “which NEET youth?”. Whatever causes the young people to become NEET concerning their problems and identities separately, actions must be taken about them.

Currently, the solution of NEET related problems, the distribution of funds of non-governmental organizations or the public reflex is always on employment. Youth employment is also among our youth policy and agenda, but the evaluation of the NEET group only in terms of its capital is something we are against as its solution is not employment. We ask this question about how young people are learning outside of school. When we look at the history of youth works, this group emerges as an alternative to out-of-school learning. We have to ask why. We ask the following question in every youth work activity. Is the space for these young people to realize themselves being created? Because youth work aims to contribute to young people’s self-realization.

Ela Evliyaoğlu: It may not be wrong to sit at the table with companies or institutions about internship. Because there is a sector that reinforces this. As a shining area in the society, civil society may also be such an area. Since firms count the volunteerism work we do with the society as an experience, everything is normal until here. But it is necessary to ask the questions of why that person volunteers, the motivation behind it and whether voluntary labor turns into something that you donate unlimitedly in civil society. It is useful not to read volunteerism or internship only from private institutions or public institutions. Because it is very abusable.

You can find the other interviews in the file here (buradan).