Issues in Focus
Young people
The education, wellbeing and care of both children and young people are regular themes in the Archbishop's work. This section lists just a few of the initiatives and concerns expressed by the Archbishop during his period in office.
Youth, Education and Community
The Archbishop recently announced a commitment to raise £1.5m for a new Academy in East Hull - part of the Diocese of York.
The Academy will be more than just a school ensuring high quality educational provision for all. Its students will come from the locality and be shown that what they can do for their neighbourhood is at least as important as what they can do for themselves.
The teaching of science will be a specilaism of the academy. Chidlren will also be taught through the school's Christian ethos that character matters more than celebrity. The Academy's ethos will be Christian: open to all and for the benefit of all. The Archbishop said
"I pray that every boy and girl who benefits from a place there will have written on their heart the biblical texts, 'If Christ shall make you free, you shall be free indeed. Do to others as you would have them do to you'.
"This will be an Academy with a difference. It will be a centre of excellence and life long learning. An Academy for the whole community. As we Africans say, now as an African Yorkshire man, "It takes the whole village to raise, nurture and educate a child."
The Archbishop of York Youth Trust
The Archbishop of York Youth Trust is geared up to help young people up to the age of 25 in the Northern part of England, from Chester to the Scottish Borders. The Trust will work especially in areas of deprivation, by providing opportunities to help young people develop their potential and make a difference to the communities to which they belong. It will focus on fostering leadership skills and initiative amongst the young, especially where young Christians are working alongside others in the service of the common good.
Donors may choose either to fund projects directly through the Trust, or to contribute to a growing capital fund to ensure long term support for the Archbishop's vision for young people. Send a donation made payable to 'The Archbishop of York Youth Trust' to Bishopthorpe Palace, Bishopthorpe, York, YO23 2GE.
The Cult of Celebrity
The Archbishop has often stated that we sometimes ignore the purposes of God and instead choose to re-create God in our own image. Our capacity to worship is often transferred to football stars, actors or actresses, pop idols and models.
Instead of worshipping God we worship the demons of materialism, celebrity or wealth. However a world where God's purposes are ignored, it becomes a very bleak place indeed. Pursuing our own interests has a cost on shared humanity. In the context of youth, when a young person joins a gang, he gives up his freedom – he sells himself, loses his identity, hands over his conscience to the group.
It's not just boys who lose their individuality. 45% of 13-18 year old girls are eating less calories than they should. 77% said they felt fat, ugly and depressed after seeing pictures of physically perfect models and celebrities.
The current uninformed stigmatisation that all those who are curvaceous are obese does not help. Young people should be free of these phoney influences and over-generalizations. They should be confident with their own personalities and bodies. Their heroes should be saints, not pop stars or gang leaders. They should grow up wanting to be the change in the world that they want to see, not to give in to it.
Young People & Church
Dr John Sentamu told a 2006 conference on youth work in the Church: "Ninety-nine per cent of those who wear hoodies are law-abiding citizens. In a rapidly changing culture, many are bewildered about how to communicate with young people," Dr Sentamu said.
It may be that new communications media -blogs, chatrooms, YouTube, MySpace, FaceBook will generate new ways of creating communities of interest and ideas. The important message that the Archbishop delivered was to provide a place of belonging and identity for young people, something which could be achieved through fresh expressions of church.
The Rev Steve Allen, one of the conference organisers, said: "The Archbishop's address was inspiring and we were all thrilled with his drumming. People went away enthused, encouraged and challenged to say yes to young people - so that many more of them will be drawn to Christ and find a home amongst us."
The Bishop of Bradford, the Rt Rev David James, said: "We are making young people our priority and I'm delighted that we have this particular day to really focus on our work with them. There are some brilliant examples of imaginative youth and children's work within the diocese." For more information about the event, click here.
The Archbishop's Youth Councils
As Bishop for Birmingham and Stepney, the Archbishop was actively involved in Youth Councils. Today, as the National President of YMCA, and as President for Youth for Christ, the Archbishop firmly believes that young people have an important role in the structures and decision making of the Church. Plans for an Archbishop's Youth Council in the York Diocese are underway with the hope that young people from each deanery will have meetings with the Archbishop, advising him on issues in the diocese.
The Youth Council will also represent the young people in each deanery, impacting the way the diocese works and bringing issues which are important to young people in the deaneries to the Bishop and a higher level than local Churches.