Kensington Vision working with Open Circle have been engaging some Kenny lads in a discussion about things that interest them and about how it is to be young in Kenny today.
I went along to the third session, where they talked for an hour, round a table, with youth workers and in this particular case, with representatives from the County FA about some ideas they had been developing in previous sessions for setting up a football tournament.
They wanted their football tournament to be set up in the name of, and to remember, 16 year old Joseph Lappin who was fatally stabbed to death outside a youth club in Everton in October and they wanted to use the phrase "Pick up a ball, not a knife".
To say I was impressed with the young men would be a total understatement. They looked like the kind of lads that old ladies are frightened of, slouching, wearing hoodies, but actually they were full of enthusiasm and great ideas.
I would urge anyone, from anywhere in the country, who sees this entry, to download the podcast, listen to the lads talk, listen to how they have organised themselves, contrast this with the continual barrage of media coverage about violent gang members in Liverpool. It will restore your faith completely. Please do leave comments here and on the podcast website. I am really interested to hear what you think.
2 comments:
I am a firm believer that for every one bad young person there are a hundred good young people. This view was reinforced one morning last year when I went for a newspaper.I saw loads of young people from my neighbourhood going to school. I did not know many faces. It struck me that these young people were the silent, well behaved majority who lead productive ,constuctive quite anonymous to the public, lives. It struck me then that the ones in the neighbourhood that everybody knew were the minority that cause mischief and mayhem. Please continue to speak up for the decent, well behaved young people. If young people are all stereotyped, it would have a very negative effect. Society needs to understand that just because they wear hoods and have their own street language it does not nessacerilly follow that they are bad people. .
Young people are very much the target of some very negative stereotyping and as we know this just is not fair. The family and friends of Joseph Lappin know only too well how proud we can be of our young people. I love the slogan "Pick up a ball, not a knife" and I will be using this story next week when I am lucky enough to be teaching some of our young people.
Thank you.
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