Archbishop of Canterbury - children 'not expendable'

ACNS 4328 | LAMBETH | 10 OCTOBER 2007

In a video address to the Kids Company conference taking place today, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, outlined his support for Kids Company and the work that they do, saying that the greatest priviledge was being able to hear from the children directly: "what they think a real childhood is like, we all need to hear that, they know what they are missing, they know something of the privation that's at the heart of their lives. They know what they need and we need to hear it."

The Archbishop also called on the government to invest in the vulnerable children in our society:

"It's been said sometimes that you can gauge the termperature, the kind of moral climate of a society by looking at the way it treats its most vulnerable people.... What do we do on behalf of those who don't have voices, who don't have leverage, how do we bring their voices into public discussion? Are we a society where people are prepared to advocate for those who don't have voices of their own? Above all, are we prepared to put the necessary resource, skill and commitment, into the nurturing of human beings?"

Archbishop Williams goes on to say:

"Look around at our society and very often it seems as if we're prepared to countenance the fact that a very substantial percentage of our young people are expendable, they're left on the side of the road as we go on".

Ends

Full text of the Archbishop's message is below:

Kids Company video message for 'No bullsh*t - What matters to every child' Conference 10th October 2007

How would you feel if you knew that from the word go your life had been relegated to the too difficult file? The young people that we are thinking about today are people who know what that's like. And if you don't know or can't imagine, then the exhibition Demons and Angels will help you understand. And there are two images from that exhibition which stay with me as summing up some of the deepest aspects of the problems we're facing. The first is that unforgettable picture of empty photograph frames; instead of the photographs that ought to be there, the photographs of a safe and beloved childhood, you just see the scrawls that express the hopes and the pain of children who feel at the centre of their lives a kind of absence. Absent friends you might say, absent parents, and finally the absent person. The person who's never been loved and nurtured and brought into fullness by the presence of others who trust them and affirm them. And related to that the comment made by one of the youngsters whose experiences are recorded in this exhibition, the young whose experience of 19 years is pretty solidly one of being the target of violence and himself getting involved in it - being abused, being shot at, being neglected. And how did he sum up his life? 'always on my own'. Loneliness, absence, these are the terrible inner facts of the lives of so many of our young people. The young people that Kids Company seeks to work with.

It's been said sometimes that you can gauge the temperature, the kind of moral climate of a society by looking at the way it treats its most vulnerable people; whether those are people with disabilities, or with mental health challenges, migrants, the unemployed, prisoners, and of course children. What we do on behalf of those who don't have voices, who don't have leverage, how do we bring their voices into public discussion? Are we a society where people are prepared to advocate for those who don't have voices of their own? And, above all, are we prepared to put the necessary resource, the necessary skill and commitment, into the nurturing of human beings? We rightly put great skill, great commitment, into any kind of activity where we are dealing with vulnerable, unique, distinctive, precious things. How does that apply to how we approach childhood? Look around at our society and very often it seems as if we're not putting that kind of investment, it seems as if we're prepared to countenance the fact that a very substantial percentage of our young people are expendable, they're to be left on the side of the road as we go on. That's not a vision that Kids Co. has ever been prepared to settle with.

For me in the last few years it's been a huge privilege and a real opening of horizons to get to know something about the work of Kids Company, to get to know Camilla, to meet some of the young people involved, to see their work and to hear about their aspirations and their fears and their sense of privation. Above all perhaps, to hear from them what they think a real childhood is like. We all need to hear that, they know what they are missing, they know something of the privation that's at the heart of their lives. They know what they need and we need to hear it.

So I hope that in today's conference there will be some strong words and clear words addressed to government, to statutory organisations, to civil society, to all of us as individuals, challenging us to think about what it is that children need, what kind of skill, resource and faithfulness we owe to our children. So I wish the conference every success, it's got a wonderful line-up of speakers and behind it of course lies that unique experience which Kids Company itself represents, the experience that's laid out so clearly and so very painfully in the Demons and Angels exhibition and its images, an experience which, for the health of our whole society, we need to attend to.

(c) Rowan Williams 2007

___________________________________________________________________
ACNSlist, published by Anglican Communion News Service, London, is distributed to more than 8,000 journalists and other readers around the world.