Depression-era work scheme may be copied using jobless young Scots

Published on Monday 26 July 2010 16:30

A WORK scheme based on an initiative by US president Franklin D Roosevelt to keep young people occupied during the Great Depression could be introduced in Scotland.

Unemployed youths would be put to work building paths, planting trees and making central Scotland a greener, more appealing place to live.

The idea is based on the Civilian Conservation Corps, a public work relief programme dreamed up by Roosevelt for unemployed men aged 18 to 24 in the United States during the 1930s.

They were paid a small salary for manual labour helping to create parks and forests in order to improve the natural environment in rural parts of the United States.

Now Keith Geddes, head of a group tasked with making central Scotland greener, hopes to bring in a scheme based on Roosevelt's idea.

The Central Scotland Green Network (CSGN) chairman, has highlighted that 26,000 young people in the region stretching from Ayrshire and Inverclyde in the west, to Fife and the Lothians in the east are not in employment, education or training.

The former Labour leader of Edinburgh City Council has commissioned market research to explore how the scheme could be introduced, and will meet environment minister Roseanna Cunningham in September to discuss the idea.

Mr Geddes said: "This would involve young people doing gardening, horticulture, woodland management, path building and that sort of thing.

"We are in difficult times and we have got to think radically here. There has to be a step change in how we do things."

The details of the scheme are yet to be thrashed out, including whether the young people would be paid or whether the work would be carried out on a voluntary basis.

Mr Geddes thinks it could work best if local colleges became involved, so that students could gain some qualifications while they carried out the manual labour.

He added: "We want to work up a model that would give kids the opportunity for vocational education in colleges coupled with practical experience. By the end of the year we hope to have some concrete ideas to work with."

CSGN, the largest project of its kind in Europe, aims to dramatically increase the amount of green space in central Scotland, much of which still bears the legacy of the industrial revolution.

It is one of the Scottish Government's 14 priorities included in the National Planning Framework and has so far attracted 500,000 in government cash.Other plans by the group include building a new long-distance walking route through the centre of Scotland, taking in sights such as the New Lanark World Heritage Site and the Falkirk Wheel, and for every home in central Scotland to be within 1,000ft of a park or woodland by 2030.

Mr Geddes thinks the youth work scheme could go down well with young people.

"I suspect that in this current climate there would be quite a lot of people not normally out of work who find themselves unemployed," he said.

So there would be a significant number who would be keen to get involved in this as a way of doing something beneficial."

The idea had a positive response from young people in Scotland, although the idea of outdoor labour did not appeal to all.

Lesley Chambers, 24, an unemployed graduate from Edinburgh said: "It sounds like a good idea, so that young people can learn new skills."

However, Kenny McGregor, 21, from Dumfermline, who is currently out of work, said: "It sounds like a good idea, but it's not for me."

A consultation carried out by the CSGN into its strategy up to 2015 closed on 2 July.

• DURING the time of the Civilian Conservation Corps, volunteers planted nearly three billion trees to help reforest the United States, constructed more than 800 parks nationwide and developed a network of thousands of miles of public roadways.

Young men were given meals, housing, uniforms, and small wages for working on government land.

The typical enrollee in the programme, which ran from 1933 to 1942, was an unmarried, unemployed male, aged 18 to 20.

The president at the time, Franklin D Roosevelt, hoped it would provide relief for unemployed young people unable to find jobs during the Great Depression.

It became hugely popular among the general public, providing employment for three million young men.

It also led to awareness and appreciation of the outdoors and the nation's natural resources, especially for city youth.