Youth Participation in Urban Neighbourhood Community - ScienceDirect

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ScienceDirect Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 234 (2016) 309 – 316

ASEAN-Turkey ASLI (Annual Serial Landmark International) Conferences on Quality of Life 2016

AMER International Conference on Quality of Life, AicQoL2016Medan 25 – 27 February 2016, Medan, Indonesia

Youth Participation in Urban Neighbourhood Community Dasimah Omara*, Kamarul Ariff Omara, Saberi Othmanb, Zaharah Mohd Yusoffa a

Faculty of Architecture, Planning and Surveying, Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM), 40450 Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia b Faculty of Science and Mathematic, Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris, 35900 Tanjong Malim, Perak, Malaysia

Abstract Neighbourhood is a space for human to interact among themselves and to live with thehealthier quality of life. In measuring youth participation in the urban neighbourhood community,the understanding upon their contribution in the community programmes, and outdoor social interaction are required. There is differentiate between living in the urban area and the rural spaces, the urban dweller often interact with others by the time of working hour. This paper examines the level of youth participation in the urban neighbourhood community. The issue highlighted isthe youth marginalisation in the community programmes, decision-making process and outdoor space consumption. © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. © 2016 Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license Peer-review under responsibility ofAMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers) and cE-Bs (Centre (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). for Environment-Behaviour Studies, Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti AMER Teknologi MARA, Malaysia. Peer-review under responsibility of the Association of Malaysian Environment-Behavior Researchers, (ABRA malaysia) Keywords:Neighbourhood characters; physical development; social interaction; quality of life

1. Introduction Neighbourhood is an idea of studying the difference of the people, living and sharing the same environment for the purpose aquality living environment. Neighbourhood zone demands a set of community that can interact, care, and cooperate with each other continuously. The participation in thecommunities is a variable of indicating overall

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +0-000-000-0000 ; fax: +0-000-000-0000 . E-mail address: [email protected]

1877-0428 © 2016 Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer-review under responsibility of the Association of Malaysian Environment-Behavior Researchers, AMER (ABRA malaysia) doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2016.10.247

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Dasimah Omar et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 234 (2016) 309 – 316

human interaction in the neighbourhood unit (Okunola& Amole, 2012). Community participation is an action for the people in making better urbanisation process. The improvision of thequality of life and wellbeing seem to indistinct without any input from public, stakeholders, and government agencies (Azlina, W., Ismail, W., & Said, I., 2015). Therefore, all the people should highly integrateto participate and open their social connection widely to take up this challenge and looking forward in creating healthier living environment. Youthis the largest and active group among our neighbourhood community. Theyshould bemotivatedto participate and join the community programme and activities because, they arethemajor contributor in shaping the community wellbeing and continue our culture in the future. Youth nowadays is full of luxury and materialistic adoption rather than looking into cultural values (Raba’ah, S. H. et al., 2014). If they cannot participate in this passage of time, it is not possible to lose the friendly and harmony neighbourhood community in the future. Thus, this adolescent needs to show their positive behaviour and act as apillar of strength starting with participating their neighbourhood community. Neighbourhood community is not just a decision-making body but also a strong framework mechanism to representing people opinion, satisfactory, and enhance the well-being quality to a better condition continuously. Youth at this momentis the agent for primary socialisation and relatively wiser to front up the next generation social communication. However, they still need supportive and guidance from the eldest and experts pushing them to actively participatingin neighbourhood community using ‘mentor programme’ (Lim &Park, 2014). This paper aimed to examine the level of youth participation in the urban neighbourhood community,especially the public low-cst housing neighbourhoodat ‘Kerinchi’ People Project Housing (PPR Kerinchi) in Lembah Pantai. The reason for choosing this area is because, the people are basically those who had moved from their village settlement to the urban living environment. The objectivesof this paper are; to identify the reason youth didnot actively participate in community programmes. Secondlyto investigate the strength of community in giving support and encouragement foryouthto participate in thecommunitycontinuously and, to propose some guidance and inspiringmotivation for youthto take an active part in the neighbourhood community especially in the urban area. 2. Theoretical review Neighbourhood community is a platform to gain more human resource in making the decision process to the higher level in urban development stages (Abdullah, J. et al., 2015). The participation in the community is an effort to enhance the understanding of better and healthier quality of life and should not be limited only to certain people in the neighbourhood community (Chamhuri, N.H. et al., 2015). Therefore, the youth should actively take part in the community programme in making the society more livable and functional to all age group with the community social hierarchy. Moreover, applying broad and continuous action plan and contribution for youth does not necessarily mean better outcome, but this action may recognising and integrating the different perception of the adult and youth (Li, H. et al., 2015). The youthwill experience and understand their neighbourhood community extensively, especially on the culture, behaviour, and the programmes organised by the society. Community participation is necessary to accumulate the view from the locals and it must be considerate upon the decision-making process. It is significant to share the information of all individuals in the society (Prabhakaran, S. et al., 2014). The information derives from the locals are more efficient and integrated as it should be explorative and representing the community satisfaction (Karim & Rashid, 2012). Hence, the youth should be given space and opportunity to express their ideas and viewpoint either it is good for them or even realistic to the community itself. This ideamay encourage and create an ideal community based on the philosophy of integrated and open society. Participating in the community is a positive attitude in creating an opportunity for a better living condition and healthier quality of life (Daim, M.S. et al., 2012). The participation should appear in both formal and informal event because people often express their perception and ideas from a simple conversation (Sarvarzadeh&Abidin, 2012). Even more, by participating in community dialogue, forum, and the meeting should emphasise and raise a simple to critical issues and problems immediately as it will lead toward solving and countermeasure framework (Apipalakul, C. et al., 2015). For example, youth often has the issues ofnot having enough space for physical and outdoor activities. By participating, they have the chance to express the issues. The community should give full support and


help to find asolution for solving the problemsat the neighbourhood level before this matter brought to the next level of decision making. The community leader should lead the people and encourage them to participate in the community events. The acceptance among residents should communicatively express their needs, desire, satisfactory, and opinion to make the neighbourhood a better and harmony living space (Wattanasin, S., 2015). Looking into this desires, participation in the issues related to urban space such as neighbourhood community plays a vital role in delivering efficiency benefits to surrounding environment (Shuib, K.B. et al., 2015). Besides, participating in community emerge highly protection to dweller and develop a good social relationship with people living nearby us making the society livable and maintain the harmony living space (Amir, A.L. et al., 2015). 3. Methodology approach 3.1. Focus group discussion The research was based on the focus group discussions (FGD) sessions with two groups involving 21 (twentyone) participants. The firstmeetingwas attended by 12 (twelve) youthwho are the residents of the low-cost public housing in The Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur. This site selected is the PPRKerinchi (Kerinchi People Project House), LembahPantai. PPR is a Government program to accommodate and meet the needs of all slum dwellings for low-income earners. National Housing Department (JPN), the Ministry of Housing and Local government is the implementing agency for PPR projects across the country. Kuala Lumpur is the capital and the largest city of Malaysia and it covers a land area of 244 sq km (94 sq mile), occupied 1.63 million people according to census projections in 2010. PPR LembahPantai, Kerinchihas a total number of 1,896 units with 6 blocks of twenty storey three bedroom flats. This handing over of project was on 31.3.2007. Based on the number on house units the estimated population is about 10,000. The population is made up of 49% Malays, 19% Chinese and 32% Indians. Most of the residents are blue-collar workers living in flats that had been sold to them under the People's Housing Project when they were resettled from their squatter homes.The youth participants were chosen from each PPRblock and they were interviewed to express their opinion and share their feeling regarding theneighbourhood living environment. They were selected randomly according to several criteria to represent both female and male gender, age between 15 to 25 years old and also representing theMalay, Chinese and Indian races. The second group representing the stakeholders consists of nine (9) participants. They were the PPR Residents’ Committee members (three participants), a Town Planner from Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL), a Town Planner from The Federal Department of Town and Country PlanningPeninsular Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur andfour members of the Malaysian Youth Council Committee. These FGDs were held at the different venues between September 2014 and November 2014. The first session was at community hall of PPR on the afternoon between 3-5pm. The time was appropriate for the youth as most of them were in schools in the morning. The second FDG group was held at 10am-12pm at Hotel Ramada in PetalingJaya, which is accessible to all participants. 4. Results and discussion 4.1. Youth participation in neighbourhood community The analysis showsthe level of youth involvement in the neighbourhood community is not encouraging, especially upon the deliberations and gatheringsprogramme. According to the respondents from the ‘stakeholders’focus group discussion,most of the youth are less interested in spending their time within asocial conversation and them intense on physical activities rather than as passive activities. It was found that some of the youths were concerned with the current issue and agenda on their neighbourhooddevelopments as some of them are actively involved inthe community’s programme. However, the results from focus group discussions with the youth

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have concluded that these adolescentswere notgiven theopportunities to contribute their opinions and ideas on highlighting the problems confronted by the youth inthecommitteediscussion. Based on the ‘stakeholders’ focus group discussion, a respondent stated out the issue on how the youth failed to engage in the public conversationwithin the community. The problem isdue to the rejection of the residents’neighbourhoodcommittee to have the youth representatives in as theyhavesome implication ondecisionmaking. This situation is always happening in the process of community meetings which resulted in themarginalisation of youth. The residents’ committee refused to listen to the complaints and problems faced by thisvulnerable group especially youths. Furthermore, the similar statement resulted from the youth focus group discussion where they stated that the neighbourhood committee were often marginalising them. They were denied in giving opinions and ideas for each programme to be implemented in their neighbourhood. In addition, the youthfelt that they are only needed to appear forevents to perform technical tasks with instructions from the community leader. This has encouraged some of the youth to be active in neighbourhood associations and activities. The respondents stated that the youthis more interested in participating the outside society rather thanneighbourhood community programmethatare inclined towards the needs of the youth. HOUSE-WIFE (1) SEC. SCHOOL STUDENTS(4) YOUTH GROUP (12)

UNIVERSITY STUDENT (4) PRIVATE EMPLOYEE (3)

RESPONDENTS’ PROFILE RESIDENCE SOCIETY (3) YOUTH ASSOCIATION (4) STAKEHOLDERS (9)

LOCAL AUTHORITIY (1) TOWN PLANNER (1)

Fig.1. Focus group discussion respondents’ profile

Figure 1 shows the respondents’ profile information from both focus group discussions.The youth respondents were chosen randomly to assess their interest and willingness in participating in this focus group discussion. The study managed to have one respondent representing a young housewifewho lives in the study area. About fifty percent of the respondentsare the secondary school students who are studying in the schools nearby the PPRKerinchi. The remaining respondents were representing the working group of youth.The stakeholders group consisted of professional respondentsincluding town planners,membersof Youth Association (NGO) andthe residents’ association committee members. Based on Figure 1, the illustrationsindicated the background of respondents. They were found to be less activeand shy to speak. There were less social interaction among them. They were not keen to express their opinion and share their ideas. During the discussion some of them were not able to express the hidden feeling regarding the


neighbourhood community living environment. During the dialogue session with the youth, most of them were quiet, too timid and very reserved. They were found to be nervous and uneasyto talk uponanswering the questions asked by the researchers. After persuading them with detail discussion regarding the issuesof youth involvement, then some of the respondents stated that they had never been participating in sharing their opinion and ideas either at schools or at neighbourhood community gathering. The research found that this is the main reason on the less youth participation in neighbourhood community. They were also not been given the opportunities or space to express their opinion or ideasin thesociety conversations. Figure 2 showssome of the keywordsrepetitively mentioned by the stakeholders respondents group upon the youth involvement in the neighbourhoodcommunity. These keywords described the involvement of the youth in the community often being criticize,condemn and defyby some of the residents' committee members. Some of the respondents from theresidents’ committee members stated that they often reserve some space for discussion for the youthto raise their problem, opinion, and other matters. According to them, most of the discussion among the residents were on the issues related toyouth. In contrast,the respondents from the Youth Association stated that the involvement of youth should be encouraged.They claimed that the actions taken by the residents’ association committeewere conflicting to the request made by youth. According to them, theyouthshould be given the attention they deserved. Youth were normallly treated as marginalised community, especially in the city neighbourhoods areas. The youth would be in the situation of more depress than those in suburban areas ifgiven less attention. More so the facilities provided were less adequate.Furthermore, theyouthwere not given the chance to be involved in the neighbourhood community due tothe lack of trust fororganising community’s programme.

No special task

Negative perception

Marginalised

YOUTH INVOLVEMENT IN NEIGHBOURHOOD COMMUNITY

Less communication networks

Less attention

Limited access

Fig. 2. Youth involvement in neighbourhood community

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These keywordsdescribed the level of involvement of youth in the neighbourhood community.This situation is often conflictto the residents' committee agenda. For the respondents representing the community, they mentioned that there was less attention given to the youth in discussing the current problems in their neighbourhood. 4.2. Neighbourhoodcharacters for better youth participation The study found that the neighbourhoodcharacteristics also affect youth participation in the community. Based on interviews and discussions, themajority of respondents from both focus groups discussionagreed that the process of development of the youthparticipation should start with propervalues and cultural norms. The involvement of all parents, teachers and community members are encouraged to participate in the process. This would support the youthto be involved in the community programme and activities.The analysis of data from both focus group discussions is demonstrated by Figure 3which shows the indicators that have been identified to increase society's values in order to attract the youth participation actively in neighbourhoodcommunity programmes. Referring to Figure 3, it can be seen that there are seven (7) indicatorslisted as the fundamental neighbourhood characteristics thathave been agreed upon by the majority of respondents. These seven indicators would support the process of friendly neighbourhood residents and to attract the youth to be active in the neighbourhood community. Theindicators includecollaborative, companion, cultural and ethic values, harmony, respect, sense of family and a sense of neighbour. These neighbourhoodcharacteristics should be considered as the best practice thatcan be achieved through cultural and ethic values byemphasising the plural and multi-ethnic society. The cultural values need to be embedded in the neighbourhood community environmenttodevelop a role model among the youth so they can continue the legacy of a good neighbourhood.

Companion

Harmony Respect

Cultural and Ethic Value

NEIGHBOURHOOD CHARACTERISTIC Collaborative

Sense of Family

Sense of Neighbour

Fig. 3. Neighbourhoodcharacteristics

Another characteristicoftheneighbourhood community isthe respect for each otherwhich will be the strength for the people to unite. The youth will feel more valued and respected isthey areinvolvedin mobilising the community. The respect towards older generationand valuing other people who live together in the neighbourhood community is very significant. Based on the discussions, some of the youth received less attention and guidance from their families. Thissituation sometimes allows the youthsto feel free in doingimmoralactivities thatgivenegative impact to the neighbourhood community.


Thus, the parents and the community need to strengthen and increase theircollaboration in monitoring youth from being contended with unhealthy entertainment and activities. The collaborationamong the neighbourhoodcommunityand local authority will create more intensiveactivities and programmes that could attract the youth participation and give them the confidence to carry out healthy and beneficial activities and programmes. However, the youthalso needthe continuous guidance and motivation from the correspondingstakeholdersin coaching themto the right passagein sharing their opinion. Finally, the sense of neighbour and family are needed as a preventive measure on the issues and problems that occur in the neighbourhood community. However, it must not exceed the boundaries and ethics of the each culture. Sensitivity is important to recognise the behaviour and lifestyles of the youth starting from the house to the outdoor space. With this, the community can identify the desires of the youth so that they can interact with the local community. The lack of sense of family is however seemed to be among the issues raised by the respondents. This was based on the cases of some youthshad less attention by thefamily members dueto financial problem.There are cases of living in overcrowded houses caused the youth to spend time out of the neighbourhood. Thus, the sense of neighbour plays another important characteristic in creating healthy urban neighbour community. 4.3. Limitation of study The reseachers had some difficulty in finding the respondents especially among the youth. Most of them were appproached individully to explain on the requirement and process of Focus Group Discussion session. 5. Conclusion According to the result discussion from both focus group discussions, the level of youth participation in the urban neighbourhood community is still at the low level and ineffective. Currently, there are issues concerningyouth and community’sconsiderate and understanding. The youth felt that the communitymarginalised them. Thus, neighbourhoodcommunity should play an enormous role in shaping youth development and guide them to participate incommunity’s activities. Besides, youth live in low-cost public housing faced a shortage of amenities on outdoor activities. Therefore, with the involvement of youth inneighbourhood community’s activities and with stronginteraction able to fill the leisure time of adolescence and reduce social problems. The communitycannot ignore the existence of the youth in decision-making and carrying out social programmes.In the rapid modernization,the communityneighbourhoodneeds to use all the resources available to improve the well-being and comfort of their quality of life.The youth is the best sources that can contribute to this success because they are very active and always moving forward with the desire to achieve thebettergoal in life. Therefore, the involvement of the youth in the neighbourhood community is considered as one of the national agenda in Malaysia.

Acknowledgements This study is made possible by the Longterm Research Grant Scheme (LRGS 2014-0006-106-42), Ministry of Higher Education of Malaysia, UniversitiPendidikan Sultan Idris Perak associated with UniversitiTeknologi MARA Shah Alam, and Universiti Putra Malaysia. Special thanks to the supportive supervisor and kindness co-supervisors in supporting the success of this research.

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