Olympic borough youngsters "take pride of their ownership"

by Yixiang Zeng

Local youngsters from an Olympic borough are getting involved in a police-led project to “make their community safer and nicer” and “take pride of their ownership”.

Develop, part of London 2012's Changing Places Programme, was launched within Waltham Forest at end of the December 2009 aiming to tackle anti-social behaviour and reduce the fear of crime.

Waltham Forest Councillor Liaquat Ali, who is responsible for Children and Young People, said: “By getting young people involved in this kind of project, we make sure they take pride of their ownership.”

Pupils from Rush Croft Sports College and Walthamstow School for Girls were divided into five and four groups respectively, with each one led by a police officer and a teaching assistant.

Children from year nine and ten were provided with cameras and maps, went out in the surrounding area to take photos on graffiti, broken windows, damaging street furnitures, and over-grown community gardens, they were also asked to identify these anti-social behaviour “black spots” about their local area.

Sean Reed, Assistant Head Teacher from Rush Croft Sports College said: “Our school children are quite enjoying taking part in these activities and they are learning to be active citizens taking care of the places where they live and study.”

Matthew Watts from the Olympic Safety and Security Programme said: “We tried to take the energy and enthusiasm from the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Game, because this is not only about the Game, this is more about taking the opportunity to work on community safety, local business and education sector.”

Apart from working with local youngsters as Develop's first stage, the project is also designed to involve other age groups on its later stages.

Met Police Constable Jeff Wade, who works on the Olympic Safety and Security Programme said: “At stage two, we will involve both school children and the elderly in several workshops to discuss issues the local residents concerned about.

“At the final stage we will encourage the whole community members to take their initiative and make changes to their community, such as removing graffiti, replacing broken windows and cleaning the streets.

“Some areas are heavily painted by Graffiti, by removing these Graffiti from the wall will make people feel their community is safer and nicer.

“In the meantime, we will organise people to paint community art pieces such as landscape, like flowers.”