Boris is to give £710,000 of funds to three educational programmes motivated towards deterring youths from “the lure of gangs and criminal activity“. In a statement, the Mayor said:
‘These projects are perfect examples of the youth initiatives we desperately need across London to engage young people. They offer guidance, information and most importantly steer young people away from the lure of gangs and criminal activity.
‘Tackling youth crime is complex and there are no magic solutions but I am determined to make London a safer city for everyone, including young people, who are frequently victims of crime.
‘As well as more targeted policing efforts, to combat these issues we need strong community projects, which are relevant and interesting to young people and schemes that widen their horizons as well as raise their aspirations.’
The three programmes that are to be given funds are Calling The Shots, Watch Over Me and Missdorothy.com.
Calling The Shots – Calling The Shots was introduced in 2005, and has been piloted with numerous groups in the Newham, Enfield, Croydon, Hackney, Southwark, Greenwich, Brent, Haringey boroughs. The website is undergoing re-construction, but the cache of the previous incarnation gives us an insight into what the project may entail.
The initiative was initially developed by the From Boyhood To Manhood Foundation, which gives ‘day-programme[s] of education and self-development‘ to boys “aged 11-19, from all cultural backgrounds who have been excluded from school“. Calling The Shots itself was “a multi-media education and information resource designed to engage young people and stimulate discussion about their attitudes towards guns“.
The Calling The Shots project will receive £200,000 over one year.
Watch Over Me – Watch Over Me is a series of “broadcast quality soap dramas“, that are shown in secondary schools to “stimulate class discussion and help teachers introduce challenging topics such as terrorism, internet paedophiles and domestic violence“. The GLA website specifically mentions “gun crime, drugs [and] knives“.
The Watch Over Me project will be given £110,000.
Missdorothy.com – Missdorothy.com is, like Watch Over Me, an educational resource produced by The Kids Taskforce. It can be incorporated into drama, IT, PSHE, citizenship and art, and is a “sustained approach to safety education that delivers character-based learning for seven to 11-year-olds“. The programme uses a number of books, which follow Miss Dorothy Com through various scenarious.
The Missdorothy.com project will be given £400,000 for work with schools from 2008-09.
If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!
The second recipient sounds alarmingly like Legz Akimbo Theatre Company.
It all sounds a bit nannyish. What happened to the robust right-wing creed of personal responsibility? I also note that missdorothy.com includes advice on ‘…healthy eating…’ which rather goes against the Boris grain as displayed by his reaction to Jamie Oliver. It was launched by Tony Blair, too, who I’d never previously thought of as a key influence on Boris politically.
‘Bloody Incoherent Johnson’ snark aside though, these sound harmless enough – my son’s evidently been receiving something similar at nursery (in addition to a load of road safety stuff from TfL). However, the message is a bit scrambled – on getting in the car this morning he announced that there was a dead princess on the floor, because the car was full of gas.
The one thing I would note is that associating this with the current hot issue of knife crime is almost entirely spin.
A dead princess in your car because of gas? How Ballardian.
Meanwhile, which of these fine charities consists of Tories?
“Meanwhile, which of these fine charities consists of Tories?”
They don’t appear to be veneers. The latter was launched by Ed Balls and the former was initially supported by Ken Livingstone and Lee Jasper.
I don’t think these are politically inspired, really – they’d probably have happened anyway. Boris is merely trying to say that they’re to do with knife crime, which they patently aren’t.
[at this point my train of thought was interrupted by the appearance of an Airbus A380]
“[at this point my train of thought was interrupted by the appearance of an Airbus A380]”
Hopefully not straight through the wall and into your living room.
Nearly – they come in on final approach to 27R pretty much straight overhead. I got a couple of good shots of this one before realising I hadn’t got a memory card in the camera. Dumpy thing it is too.
I live four miles out on the 23 centreline, just under the MID/OCK SID, but I’ve only seen the beast once. I suspect it may be due to insufficient noise. Bring back the 7 o’clock rock from the PIA 742!
It’s pretty noisy, albeit at low pitch, not the howl of a 747 (which are noisy old things, it has to be said).
I think the reason I hadn’t seen more than one before (in the distance, taking off) was the timing of the inbound flight – until the 16th July there was only one flight daily (SQ322), which landed at something like five to six. There are now two on some days, the other (SQ318) arrives at 19:10, so well viewable now. In fact I’m strolling out now, clouds permitting.
Rats – landing easterly today. Still, it’s nice to have a rest from the noise.
[...] £100 million on a variety of education initiatives. These range from school programmes, which we detailed previously, to ‘about 100‘ weekend “boot camps”, where “misbehaving [...]
all three projects sounds interesting,(homes_fp) housing options, mentoring and educational services will be applying for funding to facilitate workshops in secondary schools in the borough of brent. we will be dealing with crime/conflict/ also homeless issues for 13-17 year olds and tackling violent crime.
reading the info on the three succesfull groups has given our organisation some hope for the future.