Nottingham connected
Business & Finance
FEARLESS YOUTH ASSOCIATION
By John Gordon
An organisation called Fearless Youth Association
have received £15000 from the Police and Crime
Commissioner (PCC) Paddy Tipping as part of
his community budget to help fight crime. FYA
is a partner organisation to Mojatu, the charity
I volunteer for. FYA is a local charity set up by a
group of primarily black youths to fight crime in
particular knife crime in their communities. The
message is mainly spread through music, debate,
fashion show and a pop-up radio station. This
money gives FYA a budget for a year to promote
their vision and to rent a safe space where they can
gather away from the threat they face on a daily
basis in their local area. There they can participate
in activities like making music which is rewarding.
Knife crime is growing at an alarming rate not
just in London but also in the poorer boroughs of
Nottingham.
The great tragedy is the more incidents we have the
more people carry knives for protection. The great
thing about this grant is it brings FYA and other
youth closer to the police. These communities have
real distrust of the police for historic reasons and
with some justification as the Stephen Lawrence case
shows. I know from my time at the Police that it is a
different organisation from 20 years ago.
I have written this partly to let you know about FYA
and the work it does but more importantly to let you
know that in the communities where knife crime is
most prevalent the local community is fighting this. We
always read the bad side but very rarely the positive. I
am worried that the crass incompetence of Windrush
and the appalling anti-Semitic attacks on the left of
the Labour Party will increase the suspicion our Black
and Minority Ethnic (BME) communities have of us.
I have always hated racism but that is easy in a
Dorset village where 99% of the population is white
middle class. It is only since I have worked at Mojatu
that I have seen the talent
fyaonline.com
in these communities and
their potential even if I still
fya_notts
cannot tell one rap track from
Fya Notts
another.
If you have got to the
end thanks for reading
FYA_Notts
Contact Number:
01157846670
Esther 07490037643
39