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The Young Foundation welcomes contributions from many sectors and standpoints - views expressed here are not necessarily held by The Young Foundation.
Ideas, as well as people, now move more freely. We have put new models, drawn from other classes and other parts of the world, before the local people, creating new aspirations and new ideas.Michael Young and Peter Willmott.
Family and Kinship in East London, 1957
Finding a viable alternative to payday loans
For a large swathe of the Welsh population on low incomes, the economic recovery could be marred by an historic overhang of debt. Overall UK consumer debt trebled in value from 1993 to 2013 reaching £158 billion. This has left many in poverty facing high debt repayments and uncertainty as interest rates are set to start... Find out more
How to get a move on without running a marathon
Hannah, a research assistant at the Young Foundation, is about to run her first London Marathon. For the past few weeks she’s been waking up at 7am on a Saturday to the prospect of a 20-mile practice run. Quite frankly, the details I’ve heard over lunch about her punishing training schedule are enough to make... Find out more
Fan Activism
Recently, J.K. Rowling broke many of her young fans’ hearts when she revealed that she didn’t believe her characters Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger to be ideally suited to one another. There were tears, and numerous outraged articles written telling the author to keep her revisionist opinions to herself – for these readers, the final book... Find out more
Redrawing the map of the world: what do the USA and Greece have in common when it comes to climate change?
A few of us from the Young Foundation were lucky enough to spend the first week of the year in Paris taking part in the first of four EMAPS Sprints. EMAPS (Electronic Maps to Assist Public Science) is an EU funded research project which brings together data scientists, designers, social scientists, programmers and coders from... Find out more
Talking to social entrepreneurs and commissioners about contracts
“Do social enterprises have the right expertise, or is it just a nice bunch of people who all wish us well?” Housing association commissioner “Commissioners can accept [social enterprises] and think they’re great but if they’re still incentivised on what is the cheapest option, how will the situation ever change?” Employment social enterprise These were... Find out more
Our low expectations compound disability
Spending time with people who have complex mental and physical health needs, I found that everyone I met had skills, aspirations and the desire to contribute to the communities in which they live. If they can’t always achieve what they hope or contribute as they wish, then it is because society disables them, says Victoria Boelman.... Find out more
Journeying to Social Frontiers
The Young Foundation research team has been preparing for almost a year for the Social Frontiers conference, which is finally taking place today and Friday. The event, held at Glasgow Caledonian University’s London campus, brings together 120 researchers from around the world, including Brazil, China, South Africa and South Korea. From the 148 abstracts we... Find out more
Time to move
Today at The Young Foundation we are quite literally jumping with excitement. Even our very own Chief Executive Simon Willis was up bright and early this morning to show off a few moves. Why? It’s all because today sees the launch of the All-Party Parliamentary Commission on Physical Activity. We’ve long recognised there’s a staggering... Find out more
Social Innovation in the UK: A View from the Outside
Before I left Slovakia for my internship in the UK, my family and friends were asking me what I would do there. Learning, gaining contacts and information in the field of social innovation, I replied. “Social innovation? And what is that?” Their question sums up this concept’s status in my home country. The term is... Find out more