CBHA resident Nickie Wilson was among the speakers at the Mayor of London Boris Johnson’s ‘community conversation’ event on serious youth violence in Leytonstone.
In addition, CBHA’s head of community development Roz Gordon held one of the sessions during the lively event on January 24.
Mr Johnson had organised the evening to involve the community in solving the problem of serious youth violence and to promote his mentoring programme.
Nickie, who works for Circle 33 Housing Trust, had a place in the Mayor’s panel and spoke to the 200 people packed into the EpiCentre on what local people needed to combat youth violence. She said it was vital that police, local authorities, housing associations, young people and community and voluntary agencies worked in partnership. And that young people’s voice was heard.
She said people often did not speak out when they experienced problems with gangs because they were frightened of reprisals.
Parents and carers needed to get involved with residents through joining their local tenants and residents’ associations. It would be helpful if there was specialist training to help them deal with the issues.
Everyone needed to know what services and activities were going on instead of the lack cohesion there was now. She saw the mayor’s event as the first step in this.
Some young people from Leyton had wanted to go to the ‘community conversation’ but had been afraid of going into another postcode area. Mr Johnson had asked for this to be explained. He was told that gang culture was linked to postcode territories.
Roz’s discussion session at the event focused on funding for community groups to deliver activities for young people in an accountable manner. They also discussed mentoring and parenting support programmes. “People seemed more keen on the mentoring rather than the parenting ideas,” she said.
“Many people seemed to have come because they felt they had something to say and wanted to air their views,” she added.
Questions had been submitted from the public beforehand and Mr Johnson and the panel responded to these. There were a couple of questions from the floor which he answered too.
Roz said: “The mayor’s mentoring programme so far has 34 people registered but he is aiming for 1,000 men to become mentors to youths.”
A further 19 signed up on the night. This scheme is to combat the common situation of many young men not having positive male role models in their household to learn from.
Also in the news:
Mayor of London meets CBHA residentsCBHA speak at London Excellence event
