EvoYouth Bordesley Green

This page is about Evolution Youth's activities in Bordesley Green. Keep checking back for more information

Anti Social Behaviour…………

The site currently has on-site security, however recently the guard reported that he was pelted with stones by young people, for no reason what so ever. This issue seems to be ongoing, when youth workers are present, not much happens. When local young people are asked about who is causing the ASB, then youth workers are informed that it may be people from outside of the area. Well, eitherway this issue needs to be dealt with. Our team will be spending some more time in the locality and will be working more closely with the Police. If you are doing this, or know someone who is, then this needs to stop. For those caught, there will be a punishment and not just a telling off. We are working to develop youth activities and bring opprtunities for local young people. This is for the benefit of young people and all the community. We hope you can see this and will work with us to help us improve the area.

A breakthrough perhaps?

As we previously informed you, the cost all of a sudden increased leaving us to find a significant deficit of £11k to complete the refurbishment. It seemed that due to lack of funds, the project may have to be stalled and shelved again. However, local elected members from the 3 wards will be intervening to ensure this does not happen. We will contributing a further 3k of SOCA monies to complete the refurb. We have now been informed of a new target completion date of 3rd March 2012. All being well, we shall have a fully refurbed container by then.

The challenge continues……..

After meeting with the planning and buildings team from Birmingham City Council and other city council officers last week, we found that the cost of the refurb has increased. This was due to some additional damage caused after the original scoping of the project took place, from what we saw it was some smoke damage to the boards on the roof and some wiring, cost maybe £250.00?. However, the costing for this is an additional £7000.00, which will have to be found before the refurbishment is complete. As an organisation, what we have realsied during this process is the red tape around the refurbishment of city owned resources. We had no say in the budget, we had no say in whom the contractor should be, we had no say when and how the refurb should take place, in fact we were not even invited at these meetings. It seems, there is an attitude of ‘this is how it is’ and whatever ‘this’ is, ‘that’ is final. The costings for the refurb it seems have increased to the level that one could refurb a 3 bedroom house, quite easily, however who are we to comment?

We are not show how, internally and externally a full shake up of this system is required, who, when and how this will happen? cannot possibly comment.

Social Breakfast Campaign

Basharat Dad talking about the need for youth provision in Bordesley Green and the campaign to get ‘The POD’ up and running for local young people

‘The POD’ Work In Progress

The refurb has started, however we are still having a lot of issues with anti social behaviour. Our team had a meeting on Thursday 19th January 2012, with the planning team and with builders approved by Birmingham City Council who are refurbushing the container. They informed us that late December 2011, the container was damaged again, causing more cost to the original budget and this may result in a delay in completion of the works. ALL the refurbishment will be carried out by the planning and building team from Birmingham City Council. The container will then be handed over to us after completion of works. Our youth workers have been working with a lot of local young people, however it seems the damage is being caused by offenders from out the local area. This is no doubt a challenge for all of us, we shall continue to presevere and try and make as many improvements as possible. We shall keep you posted and up to date.

Midnight Bus – Engaging with local young people

We continued to engage with the local young people in the winter months, with the use of the ‘Midnight Bus’ we were able to hire from Birmingham City Council. This enabled us invite young people to ‘hop on’ and talk to youth workers and also to find out the latest RE ‘The POD’. It was a lot warmer than hanging outside in the cold and dark for young people, therefore we got a good turnout at sessions. For more pictures, visit www.ourcommunity.org.uk and our facebook and Flickr Pages.

Evo Youth – Community Outreach

Since May 2011, our team of youth workers have been working on the ground developing relationships with young people, consulting with the community and getting to the root of why ‘The POD’ was never opened. The conclusion unfolds a blame game with many statutory and VCS organisations and personnel involved. We are not in a position to comment on this, however what we do know is that this whole process has damaged the community considerably, it is long term and the results are there for all to see. The area is a crime hotspot, drugs is a big issue and crime is on the rise. As a community organisation, we can only but try and develop some grass roots intervention and further prevention to stop these issues escalating. We cannot do this on our own, we need everyone to get together and support us with this project.

It has taken over 16 months, since our initial involvement, numerous meetings with personnel from all sectors, it seems we are finally in a position to refurbish ‘The POD’ and open it for local young people and the community.

Needless to say, the hard work starts now……..