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Posted on November 13th 2015
Students Help Create Safe Havens on Rye Lane
Our students have been helping the charity For Jimmy set up safe havens for children on Rye Lane.
The charity For Jimmy, set up after the murder of 16-year-old Jimmy Mizen in 2008, started working with Harris Boys’ Academy East Dulwich, Southwark Police and the council at the beginning of October on its Safe Haven social action project.
How the story was reported in the South London Press and on the For Jimmy website.
Two-year partnership
Safe Havens are a simple idea, the pupils go out onto their local high street and ask shopkeepers if they would lock the door and call the police if a young person or adult was in danger or felt threatened on the street.
The project with HBAED is the beginning of a two-year partnership between Southwark Borough Council and For Jimmy, to create seven new Safe Haven zones throughout the borough with 14 schools and youth centres. What makes it unique is that it’s led by young people who are challenged to build the relationships with their local community to help make it safer.
Shopkeepers
On 10 November, For Jimmy took the group of pupils out onto Rye Lane, where they visited shops along the high street, personally asking shopkeepers if they would be willing to sign up to the Safe Haven scheme. After a successful Safe Haven walk, the young people signed up over 30 shops along the length of Rye Lane.
Margaret Mizen, MBE, said: “We believe that if young people feel they have a stake in their local community they will feel some responsibility for it and how it functions. Given the right guidance and opportunities, young people who may have been vulnerable to falling into crime, can be diverted from it.”
