We hosted a wonderful evening of stimulating presentations, energising discussions and productive suggestions for change at 3Space on Wednesday night. People of different ages, backgrounds and perspectives came together with a shared passion to do better for young people.
A big thank you to all those that came.
Jack Hopkins, Leader of Lambeth Council opened the event and spoke about his determination for the Council to engage and listen more to what’s going on in the community and to work more effectively with the people who are closest to what’s going on.
Maggie and Maya Owolade, a mother and daughter, spoke very honestly from the heart about their experiences. Maggie is a single mum who has been bringing up 4 kids in poverty and struggles to access information and guidance. Maya is 23 and has just come out of University with huge debts to find nothing she was promised is there for her.
Maya’s story stimulated a lot of discussion and people want to help. She has agreed to write a blog for us so watch this space!
Ash Senator and Serena Nalty- Coombs from Code 7 told us about Lambeth Schools Patrol, a fantastic new grassroots initiative that recruits and trains community volunteers to a high standard to patrol the streets of Brixton after school to keep young people safe, build relationships and connect them to positive opportunities.
Julia Nicholls from Squire and Partners Architects, now one of Brixton’s largest employers, gave examples of the wonderful work they do and showed how employers can add value by giving young people access to visit offices, meet employees and take part in projects.
Shaff Prabatani from Lambeth Made helped got the discussions going in our Open Space. There were many fantastic conversations and people stayed till 9pm!
It was hard to get people to stop talking and write their ideas, but we did get some really good feedback – especially from the youth corner (big thanks to Stevii and Rita from BLP!)
We will be using these insights to guide what we do and we look forward to taking the discussion forward at different forums convened by Makeshift, BLP, Lambeth and many others.