LET’S TALK
The project headlines, positive and negative for late 2022 were:
Formal archiving of video material would begin in the autumn but the culmination of the four-year project arrived in September 2022 when LET’S TALK and Community TV Trust launched the documentary “CHANGE OF THOUGHT” at the Peckhamplex cinema as part of the Peckham & Nunhead Free Film Festival. The screening was well attended and followed by a Q+A featuring three key voices – Javell, his mother Erveline, and Elevated Minds’ CEO Doreen Sinclair-McCollin – and a local councillor.
Feedback on the film:
Alison Willis, magistrate: “Just goes to show what can be changed with the right intervention at the right time.”
Fokrul Meah, Youth Project Leader at Bede: “Great documentary! … portrays what can be achieved positively.”
Richard Lazarus, retired banker: “… the amazing, brilliant encouragement of young black people to join in training the police. This was mind-blowing in its scope for changing behaviour on both sides.”
Reina James, writer: “It’s a very important film.”
Colin Wingrove, Ch.Supt. Area South BCU: “Thank you for sending through – have started to watch – shared with my team.”
Ella Davenport, Community Engagement Officer, Central South (AS) BCU: “I watched the full video last week and thought it was brilliant. It shows all sides and is a good reflection of some of the incredible work that is going on to tackle this.”
Back in January 2022 the project headlines were:
1: Community TV Trust is going strong with LET’S TALK, has secured its first Forum for two years due to the pandemic, and has a raft of video discussions on the growing LET’S TALK website.
2: This year comprises Forums, a LET’S TALK project report, screenings, podcasts, and a formal documentary film about an amazing local project driven by teenage Black boys wanting better relations with the Police, “CHANGE OF THOUGHT”.
In 2021, along with the rest of the world, we struggled with live events. We staged no Forums in schools and youth clubs but were busy on Zoom. Visit our Films page on the LET’S TALK website to see.
In May 2020 the project headlines, positive and negative, were:
1: Community TV Trust ran 5 Forums involving three new partners: Blue Elephant Theatre, Highshore School, Ark Walworth Academy. Covid-19 prevented Dulwich College’s scheduled participation.
2: Topics high on the agenda for older year groups were racism and the death penalty. Sentences were perceived as lenient too often, and life in prison deemed too comfortable.
3: On the negative side, relations with the Police are frustrated by a lack of cooperation at more senior level. CTVT had discussions at high level, Borough Commander and Deputy Commissioner, but with no effective follow through. Community facing officers, at say Chief Inspector rank, just do not have their heart in it, meetings do not happen and agreements fall by the wayside. With more police stations shut, the way ahead is not obvious.
4: Even for a willing school, partnering a project such as LET’S TALK is tricky. Staff may appreciate the value of and intentions behind LET’S TALK but have very little time and energy to dedicate to it. This cannot be right. Real education is about more than grades. As one educationalist said: “The end of education is character.”
2020 FILM TOUR
This was rendered unworkable by the pandemic. Offering various source material from LET’S TALK online to schools became the plan and would include audio files from Forum recordings, short films from the Community TV Trust archive, especially its three-year project London Young Voices. Through LYV, many short films were made by 10-to-16 year olds, around gangs, cyber bullying, knife crime and revenge crime.
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The project headlines as at July 2019 were:
1: CTVT announces support for young people to educate their parents via YouTube
2: “Police are not the right agency to tackle knife crime”, says academic
3: LET’S TALK facilitates a private meeting for bereaved parents to speak with the Prime Minister
Story 1 Educate the Parents
A number of students voiced concerns that their parents generation did not understand what was going on for young people today. Community TV Trust has stepped in and pledged to support a team of young people who will lead on content generation for this work. A dedicated LET’S TALK website will also carry this channel as well as link to social media platforms requested by the young editors.
Story 2 It’s not the Police
One Panel member is preparing a PhD and studying policing in Southwark. He attended all the Forums and having combed through the transcripts put together an argument that says the Police are not the right agency to tackle knife crime. This sounds inflammatory but being well argued is more accurately challenging to the rest of us. Are we ready for the consequences of this idea?
Story 3 Meeting the Prime Minister
In the autumn of 2018 a former pupil of Harris Academy Peckham [HAP] was killed when trying to intervene in a fight he bumped into. He lost his life. This tragedy coincided with Year 9 students at HAP creating a musical on a fictional knife crime story. Their music teacher sat on the LET’S TALK Panel and met up with the Ministry of Justice senior civil servant also on the Panel. When she was contacted by the Prime Minister’s office with a request to locate a bereaved family with whom the PM might meet and talk about knife crime and related issues, the two Panel members hooked up and arranged at short notice for the parents to meet privately with Theresa May.
This extraordinary story shows what can happen when a community meets up and relationships are struck up between similarly minded active citizens.
2019 FILM TOUR
The range of LET’S TALK films, apart from video testimony by some young people, included a musical from Harris Academy Peckham & a film drama from local dance company, Movement Factory.