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.

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?"