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Let me take you back to the early 1990s, and to sunny North Belfast where I was finding my way through adolescence into being a young man.

My main thoughts were based around football, music and girls. Would United finally win their first league since 1967? Could Cliftonville actually win something, anything, a match or two perhaps, and would a girl even speak to me?

The KLF were the most important band around (they still are one of the most important acts ever). Throw in a few close encounters with the RUC and the local furry faces, with a backdrop of the Troubles, and seeing the devastation of watching friends being buried because of political violence.

Yet among that, I always retained a sense of hope that we would come out of it and emerge relatively intact - and to a degree we have.

Fast forward to 2018 and in the aftermath of the collapse of the deal that never was, and as the various political recriminations were being shouted at opposing sides, it got me thinking it can't be easy being a young person in Northern Ireland right now.

This was backed up by reading that a third of young people from Northern Ireland who go to university travel outside NI, mainly to the North West of England and Scotland, and only a third of those who graduate return back home.

There seems to be a general sense that hope is a rare commodity, and that many want to clear off out of here to more welcoming and inclusive places. The brain drain is very much a reality.

The language that is aimed at them is also another huge bugbear of mine. Millennials are often described as self-centred snowflakes, rights-obsessed and entitled, by those older than them. The word snowflake has taken on a life of its own in the past number of years, but are the kids really the snowflake generation?

We've burdened them with austerity and they are going to be paying the price of our economic failures for years to come. Here they are now with many working in short-term low-paid jobs with no economic certainty.

They are paying for the pensions of the baby boomers, that generation that largely voted for Brexit (don't get me started on that, I'll be here all day). The baby boomer generation had relative long-term economic security, cheap and affordable housing, free higher education and a well-funded and protected NHS.

If any generation has a sense of entitlement it's definitely not the current crop of kids - it's some of the baby boomers who think they know better and dismiss the frustrations of millennials at watching the ladder of opportunity being pulled away from them.

Oh and by the way in Northern Ireland, we have passed our sectarian hatred and division on to them - well done everyone, give yourselves a pat on the back. I haven't even mentioned the institutional homophobia and sexism.

Now if I was 20 years younger and living in Northern Ireland right now I'd be angry. As a 43-year-old I am livid at the mess we've left them to deal with for years to come. So I can understand if any young person has had their fill of life in Northern Ireland and wants to get out.

But at the same time, I would say fight for this place, dig in and aim to make it a fairer, more equal, secular part of the world. You can be the catalyst for change this little part of the world so desperately needs. Ignore local talk radio, which only gives a voice to those intent on stirring the sectarian pot for their own short-term needs.

There are youth groups such as the Northern Ireland Youth Forum out there fighting for young people to have a stronger voice, for them to be allowed to vote at 16, for them to have a youth assembly.

If that's not your thing, look within your own communities, find your voice, constantly question authority, and don't let anyone tell you different. This crazy little strip of land needs you more than ever. We need your ideas and vision, so don't give up or back down to the naysayers - be relentless.