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Ruth Harley @ruthh.bsky.social · 1h

I'm sure there will be options more local to you, but if you fancied doing a (not too massive) blanket, Newcastle Women's Street Watch which is based in my parish is always looking for them to give out to vulnerable women in difficult situations.

Ruth Harley @ruthh.bsky.social · 4h

I had to have it pointed out to me by a more experienced academic that I don't actually have to go along with that implicit 'patriarchy as default, feminism as niche' model. It's so pervasive. (And the same for black theology, queer theology, etc).

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Ruth Harley @ruthh.bsky.social · 4h

Another thing that does not help with this is the (explicit or implicit) idea of canon. Eg. there is an expectation that I should have at least a passing familiarity with Barth, but no corresponding expectation that a Barth scholar should have even heard of Rosemary Radford Ruether.

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Ruth Harley @ruthh.bsky.social · 8h

We get a certain amount of nostalgia about the church youth group (more than half my congregation met their spouse there!). But it's the stripping away of universal statutory provision that people are really fired up about. (I do sympathise, of course, with your frustration with lack of volunteers.)

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Ruth Harley @ruthh.bsky.social · 8h

Whereas here the sites of what was once the youth clubs (and the pubs, and the social clubs, etc) sit derelict, as a constant reminder of what has been lost or taken away. So even people who don't remember them know the stories. Which makes for a very different context, I agree.

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Ruth Harley @ruthh.bsky.social · 16h

That's a very different experience from what I see and hear here (also on the bottom 1% of the deprivation index). Which I suppose just goes to show the particularity of communities, even when they look similar on paper, and the importance of knowing our own patch.

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Ruth Harley @ruthh.bsky.social · 16h

I just think "if people really cared about the loss of essential statutory services they'd volunteer to try to fill the gap" is a really unhelpful take, especially in communities where everyone is already stretched to breaking point and beyond.

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Ruth Harley @ruthh.bsky.social · 17h

I think these are different issues. The kind of universal access, open every night, staffed by highly skilled professionals, core community infrastructure which the article is describing isn't replicable through volunteers and donations. (Not to say volunteer led youth groups don't matter, but...)

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Ruth Harley @ruthh.bsky.social · 17h

I don't believe that "few seem to care" about the near-annihilation of youth clubs. It's one of the issues I hear people caring about passionately every day. I can believe that few with the political power to effect large-scale change care enough to use it. But many people care very deeply indeed.

Eliot Higgins @eliothiggins.bsky.social · 19h

Britain's youth clubs have been quietly decimated. What's most revealing is that few seem to care | John Harris www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Britain's youth clubs have been quietly decimated. What's most revealing is that few seem to care | John Harris

These vital spaces have been the first targets of cuts in a nation that favours age over youth – despite being the remedy for blights such as social division, polarisation and loneliness, says Guardia...

www.theguardian.com

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