The Opening of "The Pod"

Saturday June 23rd was an important day in the life of the community on the border of Alum Rock and Bordesley Green. After several years of hard work initiated by Margaret, a local resident, and many twists and turns, Basharat Dad of Our Community was able to preside over the opening of “The Pod”.

Located on Whitacre Road, just over the railway line at the far end of Ludlow Road, “The Pod” has turned a vandalised container and a disused skate park into a colourful venue with the potential to offer many opportunities to local residents.

As Basharat Dad explains:

“This was the hot spot area for anti-social behaviour. The police got Our Community CIC involved in the process and we’ve been working on the ground in the area for over two years, building that relationship with the young people, and working with the council at the same time which is quite difficult to achieve. And then within that two and a bit years we’ve actually managed to take the skate park off the council, and it’s going through community asset transfer, so we’re going to take the actual site. It would be an asset owned by Our Community”.

On the opening day over 150 people came to see the site's possibilities. Basharat’s plan is to use both the skate park and the Pod building itself to widen the range of activities offered by Our Community and one of its associate organisations Evo Youth:

“In terms of going forward, we’ve got this building, “The Pod”. I’m working with a number of housing associations, and a number of local organisations who want to use this for different types of activities. So everything here won’t be run by Our Community CIC, we’re just going to manage that process. But the youth work will be run by Our Community CIC and Bordesley Green Detached Project. They’re part of the Youth Service, and they’ll be delivering some of their programmes from this site.

So it is a community facility and it will be run by the local community. We’ve got local women that want to do something here, so it will be resident-led. We’ve got volunteers that want to support us. All the painting you can see on the Skate Park has been carried out by volunteers, and paint that we got from local organisations”.

Given the alarmingly high unemployment in East Birmingham, Basharat is keen to offer support into employment and training routes:

“We’re looking at working with 24 young people and working with them to progress through to careers advice, education, and helping them make those choices. Not only just sign-post them, but actually step by step working with them and slowly making that change. We’ve already got a project at the Evolution Centre, and hopefully that will be coming here. That’s already in the pipeline. We’re still running our cricket, still running our football, so any young people that want to do that can do that”.

Basharat summarised his feelings having seen "The Pod" open:

“It’s been a bit of a process, but just to see it open on Saturday, and with the feel and vibe of the community, makes it all worth it”.

For more details see the Our Community Facebook page and Twitter feed

Faith Watch: The Eyes and Ears of the Community?

West Midlands Police has teamed up with 14 members of the local community and religious institutions to establish ‘Faith Watch’ patrols in the Washwood Heath ward.

As the neighbourhood police sergeant Richard Evans explains, the initiative aims to harness well-respected members of the local community to walk around their area and pre-empt potential incidents of low-level disorder.

“It’s a coining of Street Watch...we have such a really strong community, and if we can get the religious community involved that might act as a strong cohesive unit”.

The name ‘Faith Watch’ reflects the inter-faith work done by the local police in recent years, building on the contacts made by John Bradley, one of the local Police and Community Support Officers:

“It’s almost like an outreach, Faith Watch, understanding that actually we haven’t just got the one faith, although the area is predominantly Muslim, we’ve got multi-faiths in here. So, ‘let’s get you all working together’ which will improve the cohesive nature of the area, and then hopefully everyone will see, and it sounds quite cheesy, but it’s almost quite harmonious. If the leaders can do it, then the members of the public can do it.”

The members of Faith Watch devote at least two hours a month to their patrols, guided by advice from the police on where to focus.

Sergeant Evans emphasised the role of the Faith Watch members in helping to address the long-standing local concern about litter:

“It’s also about empowering the members of the community to take a pride in their own area. It’s not just about anti-social behaviour...there’s a litter thing – A couple of the members are so good, they will knock on doors and say, ‘Is that your rubbish? Who’s responsible for this?’ And that’s so powerful. If we did it, sometimes we might just get lip service. It’s about the community, there’s more respect there, because they’ve lived there for a long time”.

Faith Watch began in March and Sergeant Evans is pleased with its progress so far. For him the spirit of the initiative is to say to people: “Go out there and be the eyes and ears of your community, and make a difference in your community. The enthusiasm of some of the group is infectious, it really is great to see, and I wish I’d started this years ago. Because to harness that positive attitude about the community and about their own area, it’s been great.”

“I have a passion for this area because I think it’s a close-knit community, but there’s a large proportion of people who want to make a difference. I’m fed up of seeing negative stuff about Alum Rock, it’s nice to see the positives because there are lots of them.”

To find out more about Faith Watch contact the Washwood Heath Neighbourhood Police Team via

washwoodheath@west-midlands.police.uk