The Dispossessed: ‘Brent was ready to blow. We couldn’t go to the police. So what we did was this...’

Groundbreakers: Lasana Fulu, TJ, his sister Sheneisha and Michael Saunders
12 April 2012
Challenged by a 12-year-old boy to do something about the youth gangs plaguing a north London estate, two friends came up with a novel solution that transformed their community. Now with the help of your cash they are expanding their inspirational work

It started with two children fed up because their mother insisted they couldn't join friends in the park after teenagers had been stabbed there. TJ Barrett Dunn, 12, and his sister Sheneisha, 13, challenged their mother Abena, a youth worker, to stop talking about knife crime and start doing something.

"We wanted to go play like normal kids but we were scared, because we knew that even nipping to the corner shop could get us killed," says TJ at the Hub, a community centre on the once notorious Stonebridge Estate in Brent.

"One night we were watching the telly and they said the age of knife crime victims was going down and down. I said, I could be next, mum. I feel like I'm living in a cooking pot. All our lives you've dragged us to activist meetings, but they don't seem to do anything. Why can't you adults come up with something that works?' "

TJ had watched his older brother, Tyrone slide into depression after one of his closest friends, Andre Linton, 22, was shot dead in Wood Green.
Sitting with TJ's 44-year-old mother that night was Michael Saunders, 53, a recording engineer the children call "uncle", and his friend, Lasana Fulu, 50, a community radio broadcaster. The two men grew up in Brent but had once been youth workers in New York.

"We'd seen what didn't work in America and how the approach in London — criminalising young people for antisocial behaviour and blaming youth culture — was failing for similar reasons," says Mr Saunders. "That night TJ and Sheneisha made us look at our consciences — to stop criticising from the comfort of our sofas and make our youngsters feel safe again."

The project that emerged was an innovative group called the British Londoners Business Community, which has been praised for its approach to tackling gang violence and under-investment on the estates of Brent.

Since their formation last October, the group have held four "community unity" meetings on different estates to tackle knife and gun crime, and address wider social and economic problems.
Until now it has been funded wholly out of their own pockets, but a £5,000 grant from the Evening Standard's Dispossessed Fund — one of more than 200 grants totalling £700,000 given to voluntary groups so far — will allow the BLBC to expand their outreach meetings.

The money is to be spent, says Mr Saunders, on a new computer and printer that will be used to produce high-quality fliers to publicise their meetings, to pay for advertising on community radio stations, to hire venues for meetings and also to pay youngsters to distribute their pamphlets door-to-door.

Mr Saunders says: "What's unique about us is that unlike most programmes tackling youth gangs, we don't just target the teenage foot-soldiers. Instead, we get the parents, grandparents and gang members together in one room and we challenge them the way TJ and his sister challenged us. We tell them that the cost of their complacency is their children's lives, and that putting the blame on other people's youngsters' and expecting the police to solve the problem won't work — that they must take action themselves.

"Once these parents start talking, many discover that they knew each other as children. Now their kids are in rival gangs. Everyone worries that their kid could be killed, but we make them see that gang violence is so unpredictable that their children could just as horrifyingly become the killer as the victim. By galvanising the elders to be an active part of the solution, we help them take control.

"Because let's face it," he adds, "on every front — socially and economically — the black community in places like Brent is in dire straits. Most victims and perpetrators of knife crime are black. We've got to address the context — we've not put after-school activities or employment opportunities in place for our youth the way other ethnic groups have."

The BLBC's self-help mantra of "FUBU" — "for you, by you" — has been taken up by residents on estates in Brent, including Chalkhill in Wembley, Church End in Harlesden, and Stonebridge.
Popular initiatives have emerged, such as free kung fu classes offering "focus, discipline and self esteem" to children who'd otherwise be roaming the streets.

How do they assess whether it's working? "There was an incident a year ago just as we were planning our first meeting on the Stonebridge estate," says Mr Fulu. "Some teenagers on Stonebridge had grabbed a boy and beat him up. He'd run to the Church End Estate, gathered 50 friends, and they'd returned on bicycles, randomly beating up other young people.

"Brent was ready to blow. It was only a matter of time before we'd be burying more of our sons. We couldn't turn to the police, because they only come once the crime is committed. We used our community radio stations to appeal for calm. And we went door-to-door, meeting the alpha male and female gang leaders and their parents — and inviting them to a community unity meeting — where we were able to defuse the situation."

Residents among the 120 people who attended that first meeting attest to how groundbreaking it was. One parent, Ashley, said: "There were mothers who'd lost children to street violence sitting next to mothers whose children were in jail, all of them trying to make sense of what's been happening and talking, probably for the first time.

"By the end there were lots of mothers crying. But the way Michael led it blew me away. He is very astute and has a calm authority that makes people listen. He took the conversation straight where it needed to go." Another parent, Moira, said: "It's wonderful that the Dispossessed Fund is stepping in to help now."

Both Mr Saunders and Mr Fulu are unmarried fathers of grown-up children who know what it is to lose family through violence. Mr Saunders's nephew was shot dead, he says, and Mr Fulu's brother was stabbed to death.

"For too long, people have said, it's enough killing" but then felt powerless to change things," says Mr Fulu. "We see our job as organising and fronting the meetings. Then it's up to the community."

TJ, a gifted mathematician who is a confident public speaker, says at first his friends were shocked to hear he was talking out at meetings and on the radio, but now they think it's "brilliant".

"The best part," he adds, "is that I no longer have terrible nightmares." To an affectionate pat on the head from Mr Saunders, he adds: "We're very lucky, not all children have mothers and uncles who take what children say seriously."

"We've made a good start," says Mr Saunders. "Now we plan to use Brent as a pilot and replicate what we're doing in other boroughs. The money from the Dispossessed Fund will allow us to show that in this harsh economic climate, galvanising poor communities to practise FUBU is no longer a luxury but a necessity."

TACKLING GANGS, GUNS AND KNIVES

Name of group: BLBC (British Londoners Business Community)
What they do: hold community unity meetings to galvanise parents and grandparents of young people at risk of being victims of knife crime to create local solutions, as well as reaching out to "alpha males and females" heading the gangs
Amount awarded: £5,000
Where: Brent
Key area: tackling gangs, guns and knife crime
How cash will be used: to buy
a computer, and to fund the organisation and publicity of their community unity meetings

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