The uplifting truth about Britain’s youth
Sisco went off the rails when his friend Damilola Taylor was killed. Now he mentors other children at risk.
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Independent Minds
TERI PENGILLEY
Sisco Augusto, 15, a former gang member from London, counsels youngsters against becoming involved in crime
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When Damilola Taylor was murdered by two young brothers in the stinking stairwell of a south London housing estate, there were many victims: "Sisco" Augusto was one of them.
Ten-year-old Damilola had befriended Francisco Augusto at primary school shortly after Sisco arrived in Camberwell from war-torn Angola. Damilola's death left Sisco, then aged seven, without a mentor. Alone and angry, he was seduced by the camaraderie of a local gang.
His violent behaviour escalated until a youth worker persuaded him he was heading towards prison, or an early death. Sisco, now 15, is studying for nine GCSEs while volunteering to advise children against being coaxed into gangs – one of scores of youngsters The Independent on Sunday has interviewed and whose inspiring stories challenge the assumption of Britain's teenagers as feckless, lazy and rude.
After a week in which two brothers, aged 11 and 10, were charged with the attempted murders of two young boys in Doncaster, adults might be forgiven for thinking young people are violent – and getting worse.
Only 9 per cent of adults believe young people make a positive contribution to their local communities, while nearly two-thirds believe young people are less prepared for the world of work than they were 10 years ago, according to research obtained by The Independent on Sunday. The survey, commissioned by the Prince's Trust, found widespread fear and dislike of young people among 2,488 adults across the UK. The majority had unfounded fears about levels of youth violence,crime and unemployment, fears that prompt one in 10 adults to cross the road to avoid young people.
The findings come just days after shadow Home Secretary, Chris Grayling, said it was "time to reclaim the streets" from gangs of youth, in a speech which marked the party's final break from David Cameron's hug-a-hoodie stance on youth crime.
But, writing in the IoS today, James Purnell, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, accuses the Tories of exploiting the Doncaster tragedy. Research by the IoS has uncovered an army of young people, from all walks of life, who help others and who contribute the equivalent of tens of millions of pounds every year through voluntary work. Gordon Brown today announced that compulsory community service for young people would be included in Labour's next general election manifesto, with the aim of every teenager completing 50 hours by their 19th birthday.
The IoS' findings paint a different picture from that of another study last month which revealed more than half of all stories written about young people in newspapers are negative and focused on crime. Teenagers are frequently referred to as "yobs"; "feral"; "hoodies" and "scum". The best chance they have of receiving sympathetic coverage is to die, according to research commissioned by Women in Journalism.
According to experts, the media's vilification of all young people is unfounded, and has a damaging effect on young people and society more widely. A spokesperson for the Prince's Trust said: "Reading the great British press, it would be easy to think that all our teenagers are involved in gangs and wielding knives. There is a problem with youth crime in some parts of the UK, but the word 'youth' shouldn't be interchangeable with 'yob'. Teenagers are more likely to volunteer than any other age group, while nearly two-thirds of 10- to 15-year-olds have raised money for charity."
Many of them are like Sisco, whose story is an example of the potential in many young people. The teenager and his family came to England to escape civil war in Angola. Life was fine at first: his father found work as a security guard and Sisco found a friend in Damilola Taylor. "Damilola was a couple of years older than me but because he'd come from Nigeria, he knew what I was going through," he said. "He acted like my big brother in the playground; he became like a mentor."
Like Damilola's family, Sisco was left devastated by his gentle friend's death. Unlike the Taylor family, he wanted some kind of revenge. A few months later his parents separated and he moved to neighbouring Mitcham with his mother, elder brother and baby sister. Contact with his father has been erratic since. By the time Sisco started secondary school he was a member of a gang. "Nearly everyone on our street was in a gang so I didn't really have a choice. All my friends were into it and we'd go to Wandsworth looking for a fight. If we got really beaten up we'd go back and tell the 'elders'; then people would get badly hurt."
Sisco was excluded from secondary school in his first week of year seven after two fights with the same boy. Two years later he was excluded again after stabbing a boy with scissors. His behaviour deteriorated until Roger Jilal, a youth worker born and brought up on the same estates, noticed Sisco. The two started up a friendship.
"Jilal had been through similar things, and made me understand that if I kept with gang life, I was going to end up in prison or stabbed," said Sisco. "He really showed me a different perspective."
Slowly the teenager separated from his gang and now mentors at the Stuarts Road Adventure Playground in Stockwell with Community Service Volunteers. His work entails helping kids as young as eight who are being cajoled into carrying knives by older gang members.
"The media don't help the situation," he says. "Yes, there are plenty of young people doing bad things and that deserves to be reported, but when I see people who have been through much more than me and have picked themselves up and are helping others, it makes me think where is their credit; when will people write about them?"
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Comments
I have just the thing to bring about collective unity of purpose: a song called Walking On A Wall.
It reaches places other things don't. Hear it at www.myspace.com/edotoole3
Most old godger's have forgotten what it was like to be young, the mistakes, the chaos, the vitality, the wish to do the right thing, the unbridled joy, the innocence, the creativity and often as not set terrible bad examples on how to behave themselves.
I'm making a statement about the human condition rather than any pumped up political agenda. :-)
I stand by the old godger argument, the young have always been condemned for their folly and recklessness by an older generation who are blissfully unaware of their own youthful indiscretions. It's as old as time, part of the human condition :-)
1. exist in this society as outcomes of:
1.1. intentionally anti-social immigration systems;
1.2. 30 years of prioritisation above societal well-being, by subversive blatcherist government, of such things as corporate welfare wars and the well-being of whichever organised crime syndicate the currently reigning organised political gang sold its collective soul to.
2. as happens to the most specialised in all species when rapid change is needed to avoid extinction, the specialist is the first to become extinct because the least adaptable (in humans the specialist is male and the female is a relatuve generalist - and the 'black' male is the gruntest amoing grunts (aka most specialised of the specialists) and hence at the bottom of the barrel in terms of survival chances.
Remedy? From society's point of view the best and most cost-effective would be licensing of male births (using a filtering system that would also eliminate reproduction of the genes that produce wimmin in the mould of the children's milk snatching crone and Harperson)
"There is no connectivity with the inter-generational attitudinal 'norm' you refer to and the present day plight of surplus non alpha males who have no chance of ever being a valuable member of 21st century society, and who :"
....Meanwhile back in the "real" world, there are good & bad kids - just as there are good & bad adults. The sad thing is the amount of resources that are thrown at the "bad" kids whilst ignorning the needs of the "good" kids who make up the vast majority.
"Good" and "bad" in one soceity or environment is not necessarily or even always so categorised in different societies / environments.
One of drivers of anti-social conduct (in a particular society as defined by its cultural norms and constraints) is absence of sense of 'belonging' and being valued. This isn't something that can be legislated by the SS et al when evolution is an overwhelming counter-force. Devaluation of the grunt first became apparent when "black" females began rejecting co-habitation. The trend has perceptibly sterngthened and gained momentum. Don't take my word for it. Ask any of the pols who bleat about it.
You should have checked out my song, Walking On A Wall.
The joys of being five years old and full of enthusiasm for life are encapsulated almost entirely.
Sing along and get back to where it was all so real and good.
www.myspace.com/edotoole3
In the meantime don't tar all of the nations young people with the actions of a tiny minority in an area that makes up a tiny minority of the Country as a whole.
1. the banana republic's youth generally are :
1.1. scandalously uderdeveloped in a suicidal society that dislikes its own young, and is too bl..dy stupid to see that they are the future and that their underdeveloped characteristic will characterise that future;
1.2. the only (and currently foolishly wasted) natural resource left to us (after 30 years of blatcherism), as potentially fully developed people - given massive redirection of taxes out of anti-social activities into education, education, education - to such an extent that the system is so overfflowing with resources that our most able people seriously compete for education jobs - including that allegedly being done (on the very very cheap) by the above mentioned "mentor" and wholly inappropriate role model (without a future worth having, for a number of reasons including seriously dysfunctional government, no matter what 'jolies_couleurs' and the authors claim).
2. are insulted and developmentally subverted by the brandishing of such an inappropriate role model - in a characteristic dumbing down and an all too familiar subversive role.
http://www.charlesdarwinresearch.org/Ra
Despite enjoying massive revenues from both conventional and stealth taxes, the Labour Party have done nothing for young people. A single example of an independent assessment of their record would be the UNICEF report "Child Poverty in Perspective: An Overview of Child Well-being in Rich Countries". Of the 21 of the worlds richest countries, the UK is last, yes last, out of 21, the Netherlands is first.
Mr. Purnell, please stop spinning and do your job!
Much more recently, in a complaint to UNICEF, all four of the banana republic's intentionally toothless Children Commissioners, corroborated that that position is unchanged (and potentially pertially remedial ECHR mutilated by thye crone Harperson et al as a mickey mouse 'Human Rights Act', that (together with legal aid distribution) gives human rights to violent criminals and illegal immigratnts only.
Sisco went off the rails when his friend Damilola Taylor was killed. Now he mentors other children at risk.
By Nina Lakhani and Jack Sidders
James Purnell, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, accuses the Tories of exploiting the Doncaster tragedy. "Reading the great British press, it would be easy to think that all our teenagers are involved in gangs and wielding knives. There is a problem with youth crime in some parts of the UK, but the word 'youth' shouldn't be interchangeable with 'yob'. Teenagers are more likely to volunteer than any other age group, while nearly two-thirds of 10- to 15-year-olds have raised money for charity."
I guess UK has many papers. That is the British press. It starts from the naked ones to the real news, depending on the way you need. I guess the story goes shows to all the press as, it would be easy to think that all our teenagers are involved in gangs and wielding knives. There is a problem with youth crime in some parts of the UK, This is an absurd comment.
I thank you
Firozali A. Mulla
Not this Briton's youth.
With regard to Sisco, he lives approximately a mile away from me. Some Londoners, try to explain how dangerous this City has become. People outside London, particularly in rural locations, should see the state of their major cities. Sinking heart types, and leftist babble only contribute to the problem.
More than half (51%) of all parents are teaching their children about the economic downturn, with over six in 10 (62%) believing it is important their offspring grasp the current situation.
But although parents are taking teaching their children about the recession into their own hands, many believe schools should do more to educate pupils about financial matters,
I maintain the stance. The teacher ought to take u te task of teaching the youths, however we pay paltry sum to the teachers and want them to do wonders. Here is one write up in the papers. About the recession and what we teach to the youths. Will the teachers teach these to the kids?
I thank you
Firozali A. Mulla
Where there is hope, there is hope: but the fact is that the problem of gang warfare, particularly black gang warfare, is everywhere getting worse in our big cities, and has even spread to rural and seaside areas.
While the daily is strong on facts, stats and numbers, the IoS is just embarrassing to read.
For example, in the "fact vs fiction" column we are told that:
27% of adults think most young people in their area are involved in crime
BUT NO! In fact, 80% of young people are in education, training or work.
Which leaves 20% of young people with NEEET status. Not very good.
And what does that prove? That's a bizarre non sequitur.
80% of the public think fruit is good for you, but actually only 20% of citrus fruits are easy-peel.
There are so many factual errors with this story and the statistics don't have any point of reference.
Heaven forbid journalists Nina Lakhani and Jack Sidders might stray out of their Islington townhouses one day - their first mugging is going to be a rude awakening.
Alot of you are more focused on my name then who i am "Sisco..an inspired choice of name..Hmmm.
" so would it help it if my name was Richard, George, Michael or shoud it be a african name for example Nginamau( Which Is my middle name). Sisco Is Just short for francisco a portugese name.
But im not here to talk about something as stupid as my name.
Do any one of you no what is actually out there in the gangs? do you know what actually goes on?
Infact, i would like to see one of yu to enter a gang, and i mean a proper street gang and see the world the young black teenagers go through. Many of us dont have a choice - police are racists some civlians are racistsm even some teachers who are meant to educate the young mind are racist. Now tell me if a person who supposedly meant to help you do something in life is against you, what do you do?
and you live in a gutter of a place with nowhere to play anything or do something. By the way how old are most of you who commented on my article 30, 40 etc, do you know what teenager theses days go through??
Please someone come and tell me because im confused how so many can critise on some who they do not know of.
"Most of us don't have a choice" - EVERYONE has a choice - the difference is, I think you made the choice. Others choose a different path, but no teacher/policeman is holding a gun to those others' heads and forcing them to walk that different path.
Second question: Can you tell me the difference between being a racist and having a massive chip on your shoulder? Because I can tell you that as a small white boy in a playground of a very mixed school, having teeth sucked at you all the time ain't nice either. It works both ways.