We're just as likely to be victims as you are! That’s the message to adults from a group of young people in Hindley.
With the help of local artist Suzanna Barrow, they’ve designed a series of thought-provoking posters as part of a wide-ranging project examining anti-social behaviour.
‘We can all help stop anti-social behaviour!’ insists one; ‘Is hanging out on the street anti-social?’ asks another’; ‘We don’t all need an ASBO!’ and ‘Does wearing my hood up make me a bad person?’ complete the set.
It all began when Wigan Council youth workers Karen Freeman, Kevin Egan and Lisa Middlehurst met the youngsters in Leyland Park and discovered that the group had strong views on the issue. They took a trip to Chester Crown Court to find out more about the legal system and were given a talk by the council’s youth mediation team to learn more about anti-social behaviour. The group asked people in their local community what they thought about anti-social behaviour and guess what? – the adults generally associate it with young people.
“But,” says 15 year old Vicky Makin, “anti-social behaviour is threatening for young people as well. I often feel threatened by aggressive people and I think a lot of adults don’t realise it’s a problem for us too. A lot of older people are scared of all young people because they assume we are all the same. We are not and we wanted to do something to address that.”
Jodie-Lee Bushell, 15, adds: “Anti-social behaviour is a fairly big problem in our area, but not every young person hanging out on the streets is guilty of it. We will only start to solve it when adults, young people and the whole community join together to fight it.” The posters will be appearing across the borough over the coming months.
