So I am reading in the Sun the other day about some crazy kid running around Harrow in North London calling himself the “night warrior” clad in spandex.. Seems he has been joined by another goofy nerd called “The man in Black” who wears a black hat with a scarf round his face… and they are errm fighting crime… Pretty sad I thought… That the Sun should be putting these goofballs at risk by publishing their fantasy stories… What if they get set upon and stabbed due to the publicised stupidity…. Real shame..

I guess they have only themselves to blame for willingly selling the Sun a cheap shot story… With Big Brother off our screens there are always going to be fame hungry jerks looking for one way or another to get in the tabloids… And the Sun always got pages to fill!

Keeping this short and sweet – Things been looking up recently and thats cool enough without the need for capes and men in tights! People doing some real good things out there and that aint fantasy its just plain old fashioned people doing good things and helping turn the tide. It can be done you know – Communities dont need superheroes they just need those strong enough to make a stand to do so. And thats what I think is starting to happen.

Then again – back in the day when men were men and Sheep were blow up dolls in the back of yellow 3 wheeled robin reliants outside Nelson Mandela House… At least Fools and horses were not unemployed!

Dell Boy and Rodders – Gone but never forgotten in SE5!

Kushty!

G x

“Youth Empowerment is the key, Social mobility is the gateway”…. This is the strapline we are adopting for The SOLA Foundation – After the way we have staged the first two award events we feel that we have set a stake in the ground with the event strapline “The community Oscars for young people” – We have set a standard in youth award events and now we simply have the small matter of raising the bar year on year. It will not be easy but it will be achieved!

What exactly do we mean by the strap line? Well for starters “YOUTH EMPOWERMENT absolutely is the key to tackling the negative issues prelavent in our inner cities. Government, police and local authorities are not going to put an end to gang culture and youth violence without the positive majority of young people who are the primary demographic “victim group” affected in the first place, standing up and saying THIS HAS TO STOP! Our SOLA Ambassadors are doing just that.

Social mobility is the gateway? Moving young people across post codes is a good start and then having them interact with their peers across the City is a major step forward. Again this is something SOLA ambassadors do as second nature already. Making an impact upon the World? If the youth of Egypt can turn the world on it’s axel then the youth of London can have a big say in the wind of change that is blowing.

Early days yet to start talking about the relationships our SOLA Foundation youth management board are engaging in but our meeting with SAVE THE CHILDREN senior Management this past week was hugely positive.

Many youth organisations talk about the youth of today being the leaders of tomorrow – we are adding a slightly different dynamic – “The Youth of Today are the Leaders of Tomorrow…… TODAY!

Be bold, be brave and be true to your heart.

G x

The evening of youth empowerment with Trey Songz was a great success for the young people that attended… I think.. Lot of screaming young girls in audience who were making a lot of noise which not so sure had anything to do with empowerment… more to do with lust!! lol .. I know that our young SOLA ambassadors connected with the youth empowerment theme of the event though and some of the questions and interaction with the singer made for good content.. Dean Atta from our class of 2009 and Mizz Camara from 2010 both performed and were beyond excellent.. Proud? I was bursting!

BET (Black entertainment television) UK who hosted the event got themselves a unique television experience to screen.. what did Trey Songz get out of the event? Well apart from media exposure I am not really sure at this stage as apart from about a minute and a half I did not get any time to communicate with him…. Richard Taylor did a lot of publicity shots with him and apart from that it was press interviews and BET filming… We are promised more time with him when he comes back to the UK in April. We shall see….. The brief time I got to speak to him and from my observation of his interaction with the young people I feel he genuinely would like to support the work we are doing…… So many people surround these artists with so many different agendas it can be tough to properly connect though..

BET did a text number donation campaign over a few days for us so will be interesting to see if that made any kind of contribution… In our experience these things dont work too well for charities like ours.. Tackling youth violence – youth empowerment etc.. not got the same emotional heart string pull of child illness charity.. and why should it have? The government should be funding is the general concensus!

So what did the Damilola Taylor Trust get out of the event…. At this stage two days on it is fair to say that we will not find out for a while yet – Our youngsters had a great time and that was enough for me to view it as a success – The Artist and his management have declared the collaboration as a partnership though so we can expect more I would hope…. Celebrity is like a drug.. some people crave it and some people run a mile… For me the celebrities I want to deal with are the unsung heroes struggling to get out of the tough inner city areas luck decreed they should be brought up in. Working with established celebrity can boost the appeal of your work in the eyes of the media and sponsors…. It can also light up the lives of young people who you can involve directly with the glamour and this has advantages…

You have to be so careful though… Imagine having Wayne Rooney involved with an anti youth violence charity when he suddenly has a rush of blood to the head and commits GBH in front of millions on TV cameras…… What hope would the charity have of not being tarnished by association..

Then there is Ashley Cole shooting people with his airgun that he just happened to pop into training with.. As you do! With Ashley I am reminded of an old TV comedy classic DADS ARMY when captain Mainwaring used to refer to private Pike as a “stupid boy” – There are certainly enough instances of gross stupidity to suggest this is a fitting tag.. What a shame as like with Rooney he is such a talent and idolised by millions.. Why cant the football industry get its house in order – Perhaps they should employ “super nanny” to look after the players!!

Hey please dont anyone read this wrong….. We have had some bad experiences with celebrity attaching itself to the Trust but this is far from that kind of experience…. Young Mr Songz has real empathy and genuine intentions to support our work I am sure of that…. what we do with empowering young people is fairly unique after all…

Lets see if we can get any leeway through his management to make anything of the opportunity… I sure hope so.. Screaming girls aside.. he gets the issues we are dealing with he clearly does.. We dont use the term Ghetto much here in the UK but he used it without a second thought… It is what it is right?… Mr Songz we are going to be looking to get you to perform at The Spirit of London Awards make no mistake sir…

We are also going to try and take you out to meet some of our young people in their personal domains when you next visit town….

Anyone reading this who has not checked out the young mans tunes by the way make sure you do so….. As quite a few of our young people remarked the other night…..

Like our Mayor Boris..

HE COOL!!

G x

Laying on a sun bed next to the ocean is the best way to relax in the world I guess. I certainly needed the break. Gave me an opportunity to catch up with some old friends on my daughters I pod that she lent me for the week. Otis Redding, Bob Marley etc…. relax the brain while the sun relaxes the body….

Then all too soon it was back on the plane and back to bedlam… The music and the sunshine so long ago it seems already to be a distant memory.. And now we have a little event with American R&B star, Trey Songz at City Hall this evening.. It is being called a night of “youth empowerment” where the star will engage with our young ambassadors from across London with topical debate mixed with some entertainment from SOLA youngsters.. Neat little event which I really hope our young people will enjoy… It is being broadcast on BET in America so big platform for our young ambassadors which is cool.

I will write more about the experience in my next blog -… For now though my memories of Egypt are slightly blurred as I spent much of the time sleeping! The joy of the outcome with the toppling of their dictator President was very evident .. I was shocked to find that the country is so poor that almost 50% of the population cannot read or write in their own language.. Let us hope the new deocratic process being promised the people can actually deliver and in doing so find a better way of distributing wealth in the country…

#

Now then…. Barclays Bank and Christine Ohorougu …. this job might be challenging but nobody can say it is not interesting!!

Just preparing to fly off for first break in 18 months. Two Spirit of London Award events and a whole lot of stress related business with running the Damilola Taylor Trust in between. Totally shattered! So Egypt here I come. Let’s not get into how this has come to pass but I am informed by the Foriegn Office that the Red Sea resort is not faced with anarchy right at the moment!

Happy to see that common sense has prevailed with the MP’s vote on whether Prisoners should be able to vote or not. The obscene bloke who hacked his landlady to death but thinks murderers dont get enough respect must be gutted. Shame, he seemed so made up that he had taken on the Government and won. He had even found time to rant about Brooke in the paper. Not sure why the media allow scum like this the chance to put the boot into decent innocent people the way they do.. Or maybe I am.. This perhaps is the real shame!

Anyway, seeing the demented warped imbecile on the TV got me thinking about the time I was sat next to Richard Taylor in the radio studio on the Jon Gaunt show. Gauntey asked Richard if there was one thing he would change to the system to deter violence and murder what would it be. Bring back the death penalty he said very calmly. Unlike 97% of Sun readers who immediately started sending in their support I did not agree. But you know maybe if it were to stop scum like this John Hirst from being able to degrade society by breathing the same air as the rest of us perhaps it is not such a bad idea after all.

I will be looking forward to relaxing and recharging my batteries next week and maybe read the old overseas version of the current bun to see what is going on back here. This commons select committee investigating football Governance at the moment promises to be a laugh a minute. See dear old Lord Triesman the ex Chairman of the FA was one of the first up. Seems he feels the Premier league holds too much power and is only interested in its own agenda to the detriment of the England team. What a shock. His next revelations will be that black clouds turn to rain and maybe even that Bears shit in the woods!

Thing is with the Premier League… It was built on the graves of 96 football fans whose families have still never seen justice for what happened to their loved ones… This is a fact by the way. A sad and terribly ironic fact but still a fact.

The funniest quote I have read this week was attributed to an official of Barcelona football club. He was responding to a question as to why his club had not outbid Chelsea for Fernando Torres. He could have just said “because Torres is a sad, burned out shadow of the player he once was” of course but instead he said “people have to look after budgets as  if they were bed blankets – if you pull them up to the chin you still need to be careful to keep your feet warm!”…… So.. my final thought of the week is… Must be a lot of warm tootsies in the Coalition at the moment!!

Camel for Gary!

Many young people today will maybe not remember the classic monty python film “Life of Brian” – A religious parody that caused uproar in its time. The python team did irony better than most of the stand up comedians of today. Brian was a very naughty boy but he was not the Messiah – That in essence is the synopsis of the film. Oh yes and the common people were being persecuted by the ruling class!!!!

I could not help but start whistling the famous theme song to myself this morning as I read an email from one of our youth management board who was seeking my help. He is trying to protest against the 75% cuts to youth services in his London Borough of Haringey. Just recently Mayor Boris Johnston visited a youth club in the area and signed a petition promising support. They have heard nothing back and the young man was looking to see if I could put him directly in touch with the Mayor.

As I am writing this blog I am of the understanding that Lambeth Council is slashing youth services by up to 60% and that Southwark is cutting a similar percentage.

The Boroughs have been put under great pressure by the cuts imposed on them by Central Government we need to remember that. They have a huge amount of services to maintain and to cut services to the sick and the elderly for instance could cost lives. We need to have some empathy with the position the Boroughs have been placed in. Cutting youth services was always going to be seen as a softer option than making cuts in other areas. At the risk of appearing cynical (which clearly I am on this subject!) the youth don’t tend to vote in general or local elections!

What amazes me is the way that those that called for more investment in young people to help counter youth violence while not in Government (8% up in London in last 12 months) are now residing over a situation where the options and opportunities for youth are not just evaporating they are being mopped up and poured down the drain! Meanwhile 1 in 5 of our youth are unemployed and 1 in 4 are living in poverty – These are UK statistics not some 3rd World Country.. Hold that thought!!!!

With the gap between haves and have-nots never having been greater in most of our lifetimes and some areas of the Country starting to look almost “Dickensian” in terms of the deprivation – It is easy to look not too far into the future and see the storm brewing!

Simon Hughes the Liberal MP for Bermondsy has always been a great advocate of youth services and a champion for young people in General. Just recently I saw him on question time being questioned on what his thoughts were on the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) being lost as an option for poor families. He openly admitted that they (The coalition) had done a forecast that suggested this would mean around 10% of kids who would have been staying on for A level would now leave school at 16 instead. Excuse the pun but I assume this was a “conservative” estimate!

What are these kids going to do? Get jobs would be the ideal answer I guess but then again the cynics might say “what jobs would they be then?”

Those of us in a position to help influence decision-making need to everything we can to convince the powers to be to investigate new ways of investing money into the youth sector. There is no point picketing town halls the Boroughs have been given an almost impossible task – The powers that be in Central Government have also asked the public and business leaders to come up with innovation ideas to help them find revenue to reinvest in the public interest. I do not want to see any more young people killing themselves senselessly due to a lack of hope driving them down the wrong path as the only choices they see in front of them are the wrong ones. I have written to the Government asking them to put a super tax levy on violent video games like GRAND THEFT AUTO and CALL OF DUTY. Games that consist of having young people kill people very graphically to score points. Why not? These games are far from healthy for young minds and in reality we are never now going to see them banned altogether.

These games sell in their millions for between £35/£50 a game so surely this super tax levy (imposed due to the violent content) would raise a significant amount. I have also suggested that any extra money raised by the treasury should then be put into a pool to invest in youth projects in the inner cities……. I wont be holding my breath but I will be whistling…. All together now…… ALWAYS LOOK ON THE BRIGHT SIDE OF LIFE….

G

I am a football fan and for this I make no apology. Football helped me immensly at a tough time in my adolecense as it gave me something to immerse myself in when I needed to escape from problems I was experiencing at home. Football has the power to galvanise and lift the spirit. Academic researchers have labelled it as a “new religion” for the passionate hold it has over the masses. It also brings people of all backgrounds together whether as players, spectators, or just commentators. In its purest form it can still be the beautiful game the great Pele once called it.

Unfortunately I feel that the excess of the FA Premier League as a marketing product has now put football at odds with normal society. What else can one make of the transfer fees and player wages we are seeing. The greed of the “middle man” agent who earns millions for making a phone call, privately briefing the media and then faxing some documents.

The powerful football lobbyists will tell you that football puts billions back into the economy. I am sure it does. This is not my argument. The money being paid for the commodity called a “football player” is obscene and the wages they are being paid are ultimately coming from the kids that wear the shirts, multi coloured boots and pester their parents to subscribe to Sky sports. One in four of our children are living in poverty and the recession and austerity politics that has followed it are making life intolerable for the lowest wage earners and families living on state benefits in the football hotbeds of the inner cities.

Football’s “suits” who for many years have idolised Andy Grey and Richard Key’s, will argue that football also puts back into local communities. In some cases this is true. Clubs like Charlton do fantastic work in and around their local area in Greenwich, South East London. The big clubs operate similar schemes as well. The “schemes” all ultimately revolve around kids kiking a ball though and where there is a kid kicking a ball there is a talent scout looking for the games next big meal ticket.

Am I being cynical? Perhaps I am but then I do not think I am being anymore cynical than Roman Abromovich was yesterday in the way he threw money around like confetti when people in our inner cities are struggling to feed their families.

It is not just football of course that has lost its moral compass. The banking industry has never had one!

There has to be a better way of distributing wealth as this country is far from financially bankrupt. Morally? Well thats another question.

Sorry for the rant – I will be ready to chastise myself when the new blue messiah scores his first hat trick and I find myself punching the air in celebration along with the rest of the Chelsea congregation!

G

Youngsters killing each other all over the Country. In London it is endemic and the authorities look at it like they are peering into a goldfish bowl. The fish are dying.. And?

The community, the black community especially, has to come together and say enough is enough finally. There has been much talk and hot air from Governments and Mayors but in the end it is the community itself that needs to put this right. Nothing excuses the savagery that we are witnessing and the pain a family feels when losing a child so early and so helplessly.

Celebrities speaking out in the media is not going to cut it and nor is yet more calls for tougher sentencing and anti this and that campaigns. The community has to mobilise and make a stand. We are going to do this in Peckham and are deep into planning a community day of action.

We want these kids to stop killing each other and bringing terror to the community while tarring the entire area with the same brush of negativity. We also want to put a smile back on the face of the area. The Damilola Taylor Trust have been doing that for London with “The Spirit of London Awards” by focusing on the positive majority of young people who are not hell-bent on violence, destruction and early death!

It is time for Nelson Mandela House to be a focus of Peckham again and for Dell Boy and Rodders to don their Batman & Robin costumes.

Be ready to join us!

G x