In Public Space - Part 1 @ East Street Arts

In Public Space Part 1 - Transcription

SUMMARY KEYWORDS community, area, dream, work, part, offered, people, postcode, story, homes, place, ambit, loved, recognized, country, various different types, living, culture, peace, neighbourgh

I see the red light. Testing Testing 1, 2, 1, 2 This is radio DJ Rock – welcome to the show yes, and todays runner up we have Toni who is the grand prize winner of a conversations with ME. [A man sings a song in Eritrean]

Community, to me the community is your area and where you're from. Me where I'm from - I'm from Eritrea. And what we came here to do is look for freedom for my community I want them to have freedom and also community can be like a neighbor and in our community, we just want love. There's no violence, we just want peace and happiness.

For me, a good community is a diverse community where we each value one another because I fiemly believe that everybody has something to bring. And it's really important that that is recognized and encouraged. And it's where people reach out to one another. So I suppose I'd like to think of it as an extended family where people can feel they belong. And as Isay they've got something to offer to the community because we're all valuable.

02:21 The road that I lived on while I was the only young person that was single, queer, brown or South Asian descent and everybody else, families and older people and people from various different Caribbean islands and things. Everybody was like, initially a little curious, who is this strange little young thing? And, you know, I had lots of various different types of butch women come in and you know, day in and all that and it's not necessarily a world that some of the neighbours were used to particularly the older ones. But you know what, there was never any friction, everybody just, I took time to get to know who they were. And they took time to get to know me and I was there for about 10 years. And it took about two to three years, but we became chill with each other.

As a community midwife, we working in areas and so that is our community, our people, our ladies, so that was my community. Im also a community worker in that I interact with various people in different communities, different cultures, different religions. I worked in postcodes ladies with the higher postcode -They saw me as the servant and do this and do that and come at this time and don't come at that time. The ladies in the poor area, they waited for me to come. They welcomed me in their homes. They offered me cups of teas. Muslim community, always offered me food. I loved eid. Because I ate in every house.

04:29 I thoroughly enjoyed working with poorer people, they were more appreciative than the rich ones. And that was okay with me, because I gave us much care I thought as I thought people needed sometimes I would – and this isn’t even - part of my role, but I would even teach them to cook and give them recipes for them to try out. You know so I just felt a part of them.

05:24 Like people together holding hands. From different backgrounds, different communities, different races, different religions, different faiths or beliefs. Hold their hands together to come together for peace. Form a sculpture doing that. Not just in my area though, city center too, people can visit there, and you can get a message from there. I’m not from this country, but in my country there was a lot of peacekeepers. There is a lot of peacekeepers but in my country I didn’t see this here. But in this country it different, they respect each other they understand each other, and that’s what I like. So this is the making of England is great. I Like it. That's what I like

No police, no drugs, no violence, no murder, no fights. No police, no drugs, no violence, no murder, no fights. No police, no drugs, no violence, no murder, no fights. No police, no drugs, no violence, no murder, no fights. No police, no drugs, no violence, no murder, no fights. No police, no drugs, no violence, no murder, no fights.

06:44 I would like- I don't know if this could be classed as art – but I would really like like a youth club like a community centre not necessarily just for the youth. But for the people where anyone from our country and outside of our culture to be able to come and partake in to have a good time. If they wanted sort of like advice or you know like counselling sessions or if they wanted someone to chill or somewhere we could host different events. Yeah, that will kind of be my dream. So just to kind of have that centre for Eritrean people that other people and other cultures can share as well.

07:28 I volunteer at a place called The Welcome in Lincoln green. My dream would be that it does exactly what the name is that - people of all nationalities or ages or cultures could come and find a welcome there that they can come and be accepted and loved. Not judged. When we first opened up again, towards the end of the lockdown was that people would just have a place to come where they wouldn't be isolated in their own homes. They could come on they could talk as they needed to talk or not talk if they didn't want to talk but have a hot drink, or cold drink, or fruit. It would be somewhere to escape, where they would just come and feel part of it. So my dream would be that that would snowball and they would be many places in the local community where that can happen where people feel that they are part of valued a special because everybody is special. We will end up being so busy. That it's too smaller premises to fit everybody in.

08:47 I Moved in back in March. It's been mixed. Obviously living in working with 20 odd people it's both advantages and disadvantages. Obviously not everyone sort of gets along with each other. But we do try our best to work around it and make things work and in the community.

09:14 I'd like to see a place for people that people can be proud to see. The place offers so much potential and each each person community has inspiring or unique story to tell. Hopefully a positive collective well informed investment for the future. And I can see it happening because we do have Regeneration around the area. I think there is a lot of potential. So I see a place that’s proud to live in and also we need to break down the perceptions. The negativity people associate with people living in the inner city areas. There's just so much to celebrate. There's so much diversity, so much uniqueness, no persons the same. We have lots of blocks of flats in the area, and I look to those blocks of flats and I think each window tells a different story – no story is the same. Its our job to find out. What is really there. Don’t judge from appearance. Look inside each window and theres loads of storys to tell.

10:45 Sometimes it's perceived I’m abit of a nosey neighbor - those are the labels that you can place on me. I’m a bit of a curtain twitcher However, I'll hear something that doesn't sound normal im really good at recognising sounds in my home in my community. On my if and if something doesn't sound like it should be there, I will look and if something is going on that shouldn't be I'll also make my presence known because that is also part of community safety and making sure that the area is you haven't got somebody crazy coming along. You know breaking windows and you know being you know. So and then sometimes some people are just arguing and well, its funny. And it just can't help but watch it but I don't judge them I try not to judge them publicly anyway.

[A Man Plays A Tune on a guitar]