From our blog: Snow hits Northumberland

I’m in Northumberland on an outreach visit right now. The overnight snow has made everything look incredibly beautiful.

It’s hard to believe from the beautiful towns and villages that this is a disadvantaged area. However, I asked one man I met with what issues local people face. He said there’s a lot of geographical isolation. The public transport is few and far between meaning that people struggle to access nearby services (medical, cultural, social, educational, even jobs) because they can’t get to them.

This was made more apparent to me when I tried to get the train from Hexham to Newcastle just now. The thin layer of snow on the ground meant that they cancelled 2 trains in a row making me very late for my next meeting. I’m frustrated, but if you live here and this is normal life for you it must be very isolating.

 

From our blog: The Camel Herder and the Lorry

I met some amazing people in Birmingham this week and I absolutely have to tell you this story that one Somalian man told me. Its nothing to do with digital media, or Community Voices, but it is a great real life story – and those ones are always the best!

So, Ali was born in the Somalian desert. In the desert people don’t tend to stay in one place – they move around a lot – and soon after Ali was born his Father moved on to another place.

Unfortunately, then when he was 2 years old his Mum died and with no Father around he was all alone. There was no alternative but for him to be adopted by a group of camel herders who knew his Mum and Dad. It was unheard of for a child to do this – usually only adult men herd camels – but there was no one else to look after him.

So Ali’s nomadic life herding camels began. He had been told throughout his childhood that his Father had become a lorry driver, but he didn’t really know what that meant because he’d never seen a lorry. Sometimes at night when he was lying in his tent he heard the others say “look there’s a lorry”. All he could see from his tent was the headlights shining into the sky. So as a young boy he somehow got the impression that a lorry was a light in the sky.

Then at 8 years old his father came to pay him a visit in his lorry. Ali was outside tending his goats when someone said to him – “look there’s your father’s lorry”. He looked into the sky but he couldn’t see anything. Then as he looked back down from the sky he saw what he thought was a giant monster running towards him. So he ran as fast as he could for as long as he could until he collapsed.

After hiding out for several hours he thought he should go back to the others to make sure they were ok. As he approached the camp he saw people milking the goats and carrying on as normal. He tried to explain to the adults that he’d seen a monster but they didn’t seem to understand. Then he saw the lorry parked underneath a tree and began screaming “there’s the monster, there’s the monster”.

“Its OK”, they explained, “that’s only a lorry”!

Now Ali is living in Birmingham. After a successful career as a banker in the city he has set up his own training centre to help educate young refugees.

 

From our blog: Rural and Urban Deprivation

I’ve just come back from an outreach visit in North and West Devon. They’re both absolutely stunning parts of the country and it was great to meet with so many amazing community groups.

I was struck by how different the issues that people are working against here are in comparison to Liverpool (which I visited two weeks ago) or other such urban places. In Liverpool many of my conversations with community groups centred around what they can do to fight against gun, gang, and knife crime and to engage young people in meaningful activities (like media), training or employment instead.

In rural areas however, engaging people in activities, training and employment presents entirely different issues. In Okehampton (a fairly big town in West Devon) for example, there is no job centre. If people there are unemployed they have to go to Exeter’s job centre which is a 30 minute drive away. However, if you are unemployed and you don’t have a car, it becomes very difficult to get to the job centre at all. There is only one train that goes from Okehampton to Exeter and that’s on a Sunday! I think this example is indicative of many of the issues that people in rural areas face.

Also because of the amount of second home buying that goes on in Devon, house prices have risen. Yet average wages in the area are quite low meaning that many people struggle to afford to live.

The approach that we use to target rural and urban areas is clearly going to have to be different. The support people need in urban areas is going to be entirely different to that needed by rural communities. If you are from either of these communities – we would love your feedback on how we can best help people in your area.

 

From our blog: Would you like us to come and visit you?

I am trying to get around the country as much as possible before our funding applications are launched in mid-January. So if you would like to talk to me about your ideas, ask for advice about how to apply for funding, or tell me about what you’re already doing you can email me at communityvoices@mediatrust.org.

Over the next few weeks I will be in the following places and am happy to meet with people there:

w/c 7th December: Birmingham

w/c 14th December: Northumberland

w/c 4th January: Cumbria and Manchester

w/c 11th January: Norfolk and Suffolk

I look forward to hearing from you,

Kim

---