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Your City! Developing the vision updates

City’s Youth wants to play part in Regeneration

Story added 26 November 2009

All too often young people are shown negatively in the media, portrayed as interested only in X-Factor, X-boxes and Facebook sites.

But that characterisation is misleading, certainly as far as the teenagers of Derry are concerned. The youth of the city are taking an interest in the development of the region and what it means for them.

Sixteen year-old Aoife Monaghan, who attends Thornhill College, recently gave an address at the Annual Dinner of the Londonderry Chamber of Commerce entitled "Derry - My Future" and she has strong feelings on her city’s regeneration.

"I think we have to look at how we can all work together to make Derry a better place for all of us, the young and the not so young. Derry is, after all, just a place. We all know that what needs to change are the mindsets of our people. We cannot just blame everybody else for our lack of progress we must also look at ourselves to figure out why we are choosing to be held back," she said.

Aoife is currently studying for her A-Levels and is aiming to do dentistry at university an academic path that will lead her to experience life in other cities.

"I will be leaving Derry in 2 years to take up a place in university in either Glasgow, King’s College London, Manchester or Edinburgh. These universities offer first class dentistry courses. However, that's not the only factor I have considered. To be honest, I am looking forward to the buzz of city life with all its activity, hype and thrills. I'm looking forward to a real cosmopolitan experience. Derry doesn't really offer that at the moment."

A major problem for Derry is that many of the young people who experience the colour and variety of life in their adopted cities choose to remain there permanently. Aoife thinks that Derry needs to undergo a transformation to make it an attractive location for graduates.

"Derry needs jobs to attract high end jobs in leading edge industries. We have the talent to compete with Edinburgh, Manchester, London for quality of life but we lack the range and variety of jobs to attract and retain our best people," said Aoife.

But Aoife is optimistic that Derry’s young people are the key to the city’s development.

"We are most youthful city in Ireland. We must seriously invest in the development this resource. We need an education system that serves all abilities and allows us all to reach our full potential. We need to extend our university particularly our existing research and development programmes if we are to compete with other cities," she said.

And Aoife believes that, given the opportunity, Derry’s brightest young people will choose to deploy their talents to the betterment of their home city.

"Derry will always be home to us. We want to belong to our city, a place that we are proud of, a city to share with family and friends, a city that allows us to contribute to its growth and development. We want the opportunity to make a contribution to Derry."

For more information please contact info@londonderrychamber.co.uk

Comments (1)

Actually I am only interested in X-Factor, X-boxes and Facebook! ;)


nicky mcf 10 February 2010

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