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
