What's it like to be young and unemployed?

Ausima bored and depressed in the park
Photograph: Ausima Akram/Mediabox

The awkward position Maria has adopted in the left hand photo reflects how she feels about being unemployed: uncomfortable, frustrated and lethargic. She spends a lot of her time on this bench near her home, trying to fill her days. It is in sharp contrast to the picture on the right which shows Maria as a professional at the train station looking smart, eager and ready to go to work
Photograph: Maria/Mediabox

Unemployed young men playing soccer near their house
Photograph: Emma Louise Sanders/Mediabox

Bored lads in the house
Photograph: Emma Louise Sanders/Mediabox

Abdifitah looks at building workers busy on a site in Leeds
Photograph: Abdifitah Abdulla/Mediabox

Trapped: an unemployed young woman
Photograph: Jasmine Walters-Bright/Mediabox

Unemployed young people at home
Photograph: Jayde Phillips/Mediabox

A young woman watches passers-by in Birmingham city centre. The picture aims to show the limitations that living on benefits can have on your life
Photograph: Miles Newman-Hadler/Mediabox

A young woman calls about a job interview
Photograph: Miles Newman-Hadler/Mediabox

Maria is lying motionless in a disused swimming pool. This represents how she feels when she first wakes up in the morning and has no motivation to move. The pool gives a strange moon-like desolate landscape to the backdrop
Photograph: Maria Obee/Mediabox

Scared: a young, unemployed woman
Photograph: Jasmine Walters-Bright/Mediabox

Ausima Akram watches daytime TV with her little brother at home
Photograph: Ausima Akram/Mediabox

The scene outside a busy job centre in Leeds. Originally Abdifitah was looking for one person to photograph, but he thought the crowd summed up the unemployment problem
Photograph: Abdifitah Abdulla/Mediabox

A young man suffers the stress of unemployment
Photograph: Jake Mann/Mediabox

Young person's under-utilised hands
Photograph: Jayde Phillips/Mediabox

Unemployed young man kills time in a housing estate passageway
Photograph: Nathaniel Auguste/Mediabox

Young unemployed man in children's playground. Nathaniel wanted this picture to show how difficult it can be to find a direction for your adult life. To give the viewers a sense of how being unemployed can make life feel pointless
Photograph: Nathaniel Auguste/Mediabox

Lonely unemployed young woman by a canal towpath
Photograph: Emma Louise Sanders/Mediabox

The diary of a young unemployed man. Tony, spends his time writing about his life
Photograph: Tony Bennett/Mediabox

Sumaya spent two hours outside the Bradford Job Centre trying to get people to agree to have their picture taken for this project. Everyone turned her down except for this man. The man in the photograph is 23 years old. He is a family man who is struggling to keep on top of things. The picture captures his frustration
Photograph: Sumaya Arif/Mediabox