Community Power Podcast Series 1 Episode 8: Inspiring youth action in Hounslow

Episode 8: Inspiring youth action in Hounslow

Chris Allen

Hello and welcome to another Community Power Podcast, a weekly series brought to you by the Community Wealth Fund campaign in partnership with Local Trust. My name’s Chris Allen, and in this series, we’re showcasing some incredible projects, focusing in particular on what happens when you give local people the power, the money and the assets to make a difference to their own neighbourhoods. With me is series producer, Beth Lazenby. Beth, where are we off to this week? 

Beth Lazenby

So today we’re going to be chatting to Heston West, who are based in Hounslow. And they’re going to be talking to us about a couple of topics that we know quite a lot of community engagement organisations struggle with, which is how to engage young people and volunteers. And they’re going to be sharing some ideas and some examples of what they’ve done to address those issues. 

Chris Allen

Thanks, Beth. Indeed, we’ll be hearing from Layba Nisar, a young person recently appointed as a project coordinator. But first we are going to hear from Big Local partnership chair, Debbie Noad, who can tell us a little bit more about Hounslow. 

Debbie Noad

Well, Hounslow is one of the first boroughs that you see when you arrive at Heathrow Airport, and I’m sure everybody knows London Heathrow. And if you get on a train, we’re the first borough that you enter. So we’re a fairly big borough, and we’re extremely diverse in terms of, you know, nationalities. But we do have wonderful parks. We do have a lot of history in the borough, and we have stately homes. We also have what we call the golden mile, which is the Great West road, and that is a full of, you know, some very large companies, like SKY, for example. And so we’ve got a lot of businesses in the local area. And you know, one of the unique things that happened to Hounslow during the lockdown period was due to a lot of our business, which is based at Heathrow, we became a borough where we have huge unemployment. But a great borough, very diverse and offers lots of opportunities. Hounslow Council, council of the year across all London boroughs. So I’m extremely proud to be in the London Borough of Hounslow. 

Chris Allen

How easy is it to engage within a very diverse community, trying to get a reflection of the whole community? 

Debbie Noad

On our committee, we have a diverse range of people that speak a number of different languages, young and old, and that is key to the Heston West Big Local, and people with disabilities. There are opportunities even when you’re volunteering or when you’re on the committee that, you know, we’ve got people of different languages. We’ve got people with different skill sets. We’ve got people that can mix in and speak different languages, and, you know, go out into the community and explain what we do. And some of the opportunities available when we’re running projects can really help the local people integrate. So I mean Layba will explain – because I know she speaks a number of languages herself – you know how diverse our community really is, and how many different nationalities we engage as well. 

Chris Allen

That sounds if you’re doing a great job there. I just wonder, and if you get all those nationalities together, it enables you to reach out and talk to different members of the community. But how did you get that range of people involved in the first place? Do people trust each other in Hounslow? Do they come together very easily, because in some areas, that wouldn’t happen? 

Debbie Noad

To start with, and if I’m honest, right in the very beginning, and there’s a lot of door knocking that goes on. And people do have to trust where you’re from and what you’re doing. If you don’t speak their language, that is always quite difficult to trust people, and that’s why it’s really important to have different people speaking languages and young people and older people. Because young people will come together and mix in with older people, and particularly if they can translate. I can give you a very good example of one of our people on our panel. He’s a lad with special needs, and he can speak German. And you know, not many of us can, but he can. And you know, when we done our trip abroad to Austria, he was our translator, and it was fabulous. 

Chris Allen

So Layba tell us about your journey, because it started at quite a young age. 

Layba Nisar

Yeah. So I started at Heston West six years ago, coming up to seven now. And I started, when I was younger, I had quite like behaviour issues, and I got involved with it through the school, and they recommended it to me, and it really did change my life. And now I’m on my path to one day becoming a project manager myself. And now I’m employed by Heston West as the project coordinator. And I work alongside the project manager of Heston West Big Local. And yeah, I love it every day. I love my job. 

Chris Allen

No, that’s great, and congratulations on that job and the journey you’ve gone down. So what were the kind of things that that Heston West were able to help you with? Do they give you more skills and confidence? Is that the way by which you felt better about yourself? 

Layba Nisar

What was different, because in this area in general, at the time, there wasn’t many things happening for the community and, Heston West was different because they gave young people a voice. And like we were we were able to make decisions, and we were able to interact with the older, like generation. And they were able to listen to us, and we were able to listen to them and make things together. And it wasn’t just the older people were making decisions. Like young people had that choice, and that’s what kind of gave me more confidence, that they’re actually trusting me. 

Chris Allen

That sounds good. And your reflections on that, Debbie, because you’ve seen, perhaps, some of Layba’s journey here, and the different opportunities given to young people, especially around multimedia — I’ve heard some of the fantastic songs that have been produced by the area as well. 

Debbie Noad

I’ve seen Layba, and, you know, not just Layba, many of our young children, who were a bit wild and didn’t take much notice maybe at school. But when they’re given a position to be able to think about something that they would like to do, then present it as a project, and then have almost be given the opportunity to be in charge, then they see the end result – they start becoming more confident. They start thinking, you know, more towards, what would I want to do when I leave school? And you know, I’ve seen so many changes in young people who might not have been given the time of day otherwise, if they hadn’t been in a local community group. They have made – and Layba’s been in quite a few of them – some fabulous podcasts. They’ve made really good films. And all the films tell a story. It could be bullying, it could be about knife crime, but they all tell a story. And a lot of these people have you know, have been in these situations that they’ve been affected by some of these things, so they’re really hands on in terms of what they can produce and how they can help other people. 

Chris Allen

And so I assume you’ve learned a lot from this journey, from young people as well. Because sometimes as adults, we’re a bit patronising, aren’t we? 

Debbie Noad

Yes, my parents had always said, you know, have a say. Speak up. They’ve always said, join in. Think about the area you live in. Think about how important it is, you know, to keep it clean, keep it tidy. And I think a lot of community groups, they are, they do consist of a lot of older people. And I think that’s where Heston West is very unique, because we’ve got a cross section, but we’ve got a lot of very young people who give up their time when we’re doing projects, and they volunteer a lot. And I think that’s quite unique, to get people involved, and also for them to want to come back, because they go off to university but they still come back and join us when we’re having events. I think that’s unique as well. 

Layba Nisar

And when we do like, for example, when we hold, like our cleanup days, because we have such a like range of people coming. So when we’re in the community, people tend to look at us and see what we’re doing, and they are curious. So then we try approaching them, and like explaining to them what we do, and we give out our leaflets as well. And like Debbie said, like door knocking and word of mouth, that was like the most useful skill that we used in our community, and still do so. 

Chris Allen

It’s hard work in terms of the door knocking, and it’s also taking the initiative in terms of the litter picks. Then you capture people’s attention, from what you seem to be saying. So people trust you, because perhaps they see you doing something, I believe, as a youth action team. 

Layba Nisar

So our Youth Action Team is quite hands on, like have ideas of multi-sports club getting back in the summer. We have walking football restarting soon, and just things that they want to see happen, and if they want to help lead them as well. So we have some of our younger volunteers who are now helping lead these projects that they used to just attend. And they’re now helping to lead them, and it just shows their development throughout the process. And how, instead of, you know, playing football or playing a sport in the park alone, you can come and do it as a group. And it just shows much more of, like, a difference. 

Chris Allen

And is that helping to build up relationships across the community? 

Layba Nisar

Oh, definitely. There’s people that you know, like when I’m walking with my mum just across the estate, and so many people just, like, wave. And it’s just you build different, like, friendships across, like, around the years, around the days, like you just make relationships with people. And it’s really amazing. 

Chris Allen

And in terms of volunteering, getting people to volunteer is not easy, getting people to give up their time. So how would you go about doing that? 

Debbie Noad

With our volunteering, so something that’s really quite nice at the end of when we may have done a clean-up or something, we’ll sit down and we’ll have a chat. We’ll get a pizza in for everybody, and we’ll, you know, chat about how we got on and thank everybody. And it’s surprising how something like picking up rubbish can bring a community together, and people say, ​“well, when’s the next one?” And you think ​“blimey that’s amazing, all these young people want to pick up rubbish.” So you know, to get them to volunteer. People will do something if they get something out of it. And nine times out of 10, they will meet new people. It’s very good for people that feel quite isolated. So you can, you’ll meet new people. You’ll be welcomed in by a group. You suddenly become, and I think Layba will agree, you become a family. You suddenly have this great, big family that you’ve never had before. And you know, Layba is exactly right, because our area is split into very, you know, about five or six very big housing estates that don’t particularly interact. But we’ve kind of have, we have them interacting now, because people come off the different estates and do things together. And so it brings the community more together than it has done before, because otherwise you tend to stick to the estate that you live on. 

Chris Allen

And Layba often, young people are quite territorial, and if you’ve got different areas of the area, have you found people breaking down those barriers and mixing across the different areas through the activities that you’ve been doing? 

Layba Nisar

In our community, there’s a school, and most of our activities run there. And so when we advertise it and people come, they do feel really welcome, and we do, like, encourage people to socialise with one another. And when, when one of our activities or workshops is happening, then they just start making conversation in themselves. So it’s just something that happens, and all we have to do, really is hold the activity and the rest just naturally happens. 

Chris Allen

And Debbie, as you think towards the end of the programme, what are the kind of things that you hope will be left behind, or maybe you’re just going to continue, going to keep going? What are your plans? 

Debbie Noad

Well, really, for our legacy, you know, obviously, when money runs out and we want to continue our Big Local work. We’ve set up a new charity. It’s going to be called C‑Change West London. And that hopefully will enable us to carry out our work, but also to reach out to neighbouring towns that are on, you know, the border of our boroughs, and use the kind of Big Local model to help other communities. So we’ve also got a massive project, which is we’re developing a community gardening cafe. And that’s something that our local residents are going to be able to manage the garden ourselves, and we’re going to run activities, give up lots of opportunities for volunteering, and also sort of provide work for local people. So we’ve got lots to look forward to in the future. And you know, we’re going to hope that our Heston West Big Local work kind of lives on, to be honest. 

Chris Allen

And Layba you’re starting a new job. What are your hopes for that? 

Layba Nisar

Yeah, so my job as Project Coordinator — currently, I’m just running the activities, workshops and events and just more of the behind the scenes to it. And I’m hoping to one day be able to have a lead as, like a permanent job, because right now, it’s just a part-time job. And hopefully once I get all my experience, because there’s still so much I want to learn in terms of the behind the scenes and, like, the finance side of it. Hopefully one day I’ll be able to be my own like project manager, because I love working in the community and with the community, and that love came from volunteering and picking up litter. So it’s crazy how I’ve developed. 

Chris Allen

That is Layba Nisar, Project Coordinator at Heston West Big Local and before that partnership chair, Debbie Noad. Where can we find out more, Beth? 

Beth Lazenby

Yes, so if you want to find out more about Heston West, we will leave a link to our website in our show notes below. 

Chris Allen

Thanks, Beth. So yeah, we know where to go. Beth, and I look forward to you joining us next time on the Community Power Podcast, brought to you by the Community Wealth Fund campaign and Local Trust discovering what happens when you give local people the money, the power and the assets to make a difference to their neighbourhoods.