YOUTH WORK MUST COME BEFORE BINGO

BY PETER OKE1.L
APLEA that top priority be given to youth work, both to save school leavers from lapsing and to stem the delinquency rate has been made this week in Manchester. Speaker was Mrs.
Joan Meredith, only Young Christian Worker Youth Leader in the diocese.
To my question: "Is there any connection between Manchester's high record of delinquency among Catholic post-schooIgoers and the lack of youth club facilities?", Mrs. Meredith was forthright:
"People think of Youth Work as something to keep the kids off the streets instead of a field of education", she said, and added: "In many parishes youth work is last in a line of parochial activities and certainly falls below the level of Bingo".
Already I had scoured the City and suburbs for good Catholic youth clubs. Apart from a few small parish clubs, I found only two : The Link Society, privately run. and the Young Christian Workers sponsored by All Saints' Youth Club and run in an old school building.
Future in balance The future of both clubs is in the balance, and it was at the Y.C.W. H.Q. that I found Mrs. Meredith. "I can think of several Y.C.W. meetings and youth clubs", she went on, "which have either had to change their night or go out of existence because the church hall was wanted for a women's league or a Bingo session.
"Most of our professional Catholic Youth Workers", she continued, "are working outside the Church because there are no opportunities for them in the Church. Life is easier and simpler working for an education authority, where everything is laid on, than for the Church."
And in a diocese which is among the foremost in the country with regard to its school building programme, it seems that young people will leave their magnificent new schools and lapse from the faith or stand in danger of doing so, because there are virtually no youth facilities.
Looking outside Manchester it seems that there is one place in the diocese where a real effort is being made to provide such a centre and with modern amenities.
This is at Blackburn, where it is hoped that work will soon start on a 132,000 project, the West End Catholic Youth Centre, run by Fr. Michael Fitzpatrick. Their old H.Q. is being demolished in a redevelopment scheme.
But what can be done in Manchester? "Pub-crawling" was one young man's answer. "At school we had a chaplain and they even kept a record of who went to Mass and the Sacraments. Now I've left no one bothers. Where". he asked, "can t meet Catholics of my own age?"
Flow do Catholics compare with others, I asked Mrs. Meredith? "Very poorly", was the reply. "Go Continued on page 10, col. 6