During the spring of -98 we got a proposal from a local politician about working with young people's situation here in Örnsköldsvik. We thought it would be interesting and we decided to get involved in this research. We developed a questionnaire where we brought up questions about social, economic, democratic and studies/future conditions. You can read all the questions in issue number 4.
The questionnaire was handed out to about 100 pupils at five different schools in the district of Örnsköldsvik. We will give a presentation of the results to the local government council here in Örnsköldsvik in hope of making the situation better for the youths here. Do the pupils in Örnsköldsvik think they have anything to do in their spare time? Or do they just sit in front of the TV and watch commercial trailers.....
....well you can find the answer if you read this.

Democracy

Can the young people in Örnsköldsvik influence how things in our municipality will be? Or do they feel alienated? What do they want to change and what do they think is good? Some of the questions we asked were: Have you any options to influence the food at your school? And: Do you think the streetlights turn off too early in the evenings?
Nearly half of the students we asked thought that they could affect the choice of food at school. The majority of the girls think the streetlights turn off too early in the evenings.

Economics

Every child gets a support from the government from when you are born up to your 16:th birthday. After that they get a study support meanwhile you are studying. The child/study support is now 750 sek per month.
The two main things we wondered about were: Do the pupils in Örnsköldsvik have enough money to spend per month? What do they spend their money on?
The highest priority among the pupils is pleasures. The child/study support is the most common income and about 54% of the students have 500-800 sek a month to spend.

Social

The youths` social situation is a quite interesting question. We wanted to know if they think have enough things to do in their spare time. This is really a thing you can improve here in our municipality according to the answers we received. The questions we asked are for example: Are there enough amusements, for instance discos and cinemas? And: Do you think that there are enough places for youths to meet?
57% of the girls and 46% of the boys think that there are not enough things to do, but a clear majority think that there are too few places to meet for example discos, cafés and so on. 1/3 of the pupils aren't members of any kind of association.

Studies/Future

Here we wanted to know how pupils in our district look upon their situation in school and what they have planned for their future.
Most pupils are satisfied with the information they receive concerning future studies, and 62% believe that it would be great with work-experience mixed with theory throughout Upper Secondary School. Almost half of the youths don't know what their future will be like when they have finished their studies, but 57% want to study in another city. The main reason for that may be that it's hard to complete further studies in Örnsköldsvik.


We handed out the questionnaire in hope of getting more knowledge about the youths´ situation in the district and what they think of living in Örnsköldsvik. Many are satisfied with their situation but they think there are a few things that can be improved, for instance, they want more places where they can meet. Our purpose with the questionnaire was to make the local government pay attention to the youths in Örnsköldsvik, what they dislike and what they want to improve. We hope our local politicians will listen to young people's voices now and in the future.


© 1998 Freeway
Writers: Hampus Jakobson (sp00-10@park.se), Jonas Norlin (sp00-19@park.se) and André Tellström (sp00-23@park.se).
HTML by: Daniel Westberg (nv00-103@park.se).