Jenny Moore has been the Community Developement workerfor Saunders Park for over a year, employed by Priority Estates Project, funded by eb4U she has been working tirelessly with teenagers who want to make their estate a better place for youth. Jenny Interviewed Chris,14 and Sinead, 12. She asked them what was going on for young people in Saunders Park.

Chris: "Well, over the past year or so, I think it is, there's been a lot of organised activities including a dance project, DJ workshops and a video project that I'm working on at the moment. We've never had this before so its quite interesting, its great to be able to do this. We are doing a video project with two guys from the Bridge and my friend Liam. We're doing it about the park and we're interviewing a lot of people about the park, what they think about it. We've finished filming and we're just about to start editing and when we edit it we will use the interviews and put them together with relevant shots showing an overall image of the park and how it could be improved."

Jenny: "What else do you think could happen for young people in Saunders Park?" Sinead: "Dancing, it would be nice if they did it more often. I've been involved in some other stuff like photography and rock climbing in the park."
Chris: "Doing different activities that people wouldn't normally get a chance to do, things that involve music and the performance side of things are really good." Sinead: "I would like them to put a rock scrambling thing somewhere in the park."

Chris has volunteered to be acting chair of the new Saunders Park Youth Committee, where it is hoped young people will be committee members alongside adult volunteers from the local community with support from eb4U and other agencies. This committee will then be able to organise more activities for its members and other young people in Saunders Park.

A Day in the Life...
If you walk through the Whitehawk estate on a school day you could sometimes be forgiven for thinking there was a school holiday. Young people truanting or being excluded from school is not a new problem. A group of young people on the Youth Inclusion Project in Whitehawk decided to look closer at this issue and found that many young people had a story to tell.

The resulting film A Day in the Life looks at the stories of a group of young people who's school life has been affected in some way by being excluded. We follow the lives of Michael, Hayley, Karl, Jade, Luke and Emma as they deal with these exclusions and the mixture of issues which accompany it.

Funny, raw and revealing; the film examines the issue of School Exclusion directly from the point of views of young people. The group not only starred in the film but were also responsible for the planning, scripting, filming and editing of the 15 minute production. Many thanks to all the young people involved and also Paul and Simon of Junk TV who's help and commitment was greatly appreciated. For details regarding the film please call Seamus from the Youth Inclusion Project on 296 750.