Gang culture is a familiar and problematic theme in the lives of young people. Investigating this theme through drama, creative writing, music and dance will encourage young people to think about these issues and how to resolve some of the problems the issues create. In addition the project will, through creativity and reflection, develop ideas and thought processes, enabling the young people to transfer their skills and experiences to other learning and social situations. Although we will culminate in a performance this is ideally a process-based project. We plan to upload what we can onto our website and our myspace gangcultureliverpool page; we will also document this project with video and a stills camera. The idea of this project is about mapping crime hot spots for violent/ knife and gun crime - so we are starting with groups of young people and calling it 'gang culture'.
Our idea is about empowerment and prevention of crime and conflict – raising awareness and encouraging resolution.
We are currently working on a project called ‘gang culture’ funded by LCVS and the BRM steering group. The aim of this project is to develop and deliver programmes within crime 'hot spots', with a target of reducing the levels of crime in these areas. In particular, the Steering Group is looking for projects that will tackle gun, knife and violent crime.
We have been working with young people both centre-based and detached to empower them and draw out their ideas on gang culture/peer pressure and their thoughts on the media etc - and to give them a voice - We have put together a team of arts practitioners to deliver weekly sessions. These artists have skills in: Music/ drumming/ writing songs etc, Drama, Spoken word/ rap/ poetry, Street dance Dj-ing decks
