GANGS SPECIAL: 'The Crib' Youth Club

This week, the Post continues its investigation into Hackney's gang culture. Chloe Lambert ventures deep into the De Beauvoir estate and discovers a youth club known only as 'the Crib'.

Tucked between towering housing blocks, concrete walls and patches of dirty green grass is the Crib.

Since 1999 it has been an open door to Hackney’s most excluded young people. It is a pool hall, a football club, a beauty salon, a dance studio. Above all, it is a place to go.

On a warm Tuesday afternoon the Crib is deserted. Hip-hop is floating out of the doorway. Scott, who runs football training with the boys, is standing outside with a pool cue. He squints as the sun slips down towards the city skyline. “It’s this weather; they’re all over at the park,” he says with a grin.

Within an hour boys and girls are trickling through the doorway. The staff have been walking round the estates rounding them up. Young women relax on chairs near the entrance, enjoying the last of the sun. They talk quietly about a comedy sketch they have written, which is to be filmed and taken to the Edinburgh festival.

A group of boys are tapping pool balls around the table, chatting into their mobiles and arguing about who is the fittest. This year they are going to Amsterdam with the Crib to play in a football tournament.

In grey hoodies, baggy jeans and baseball hats, these boys are the very same that are seen next to headlines about Hackney’s “child soldiers”, “gang culture” and “gun crime”. They yell “hello” in my direction, and come and sit down.

Junior is candid about the tough life he leads outside the Crib. He moved to this area two years ago, leaving behind an estate where a life of crime was hard to avoid. “They say there’s 25 gangs in Hackney – it’s true. I know because I used to live that lifestyle. But I moved out because I nearly died.”

At 18 he has already been shot at three times and now wears a bullet-proof vest. “In some areas it doesn’t matter who you are. If they’re looking for someone about your age, they’re not going to bother coming up and asking if you’re the guy. They’ll just shoot you.”

Junior is hoping he will be scouted in Amsterdam. His friend Ade, 17, dreams of being an architect. They come to the Crib after college to train and get help with their homework. “There’s not enough to do round here,” says Ade, “School’s alright. It’s somewhere to escape, and so is the Crib.”

Janet Williams, who has been manager of the Crib since it was set up eight years ago, says it provides a neutral place for boys like Junior and Ade. “For a lot of them it’s the only place where they can be themselves and be safe. These people have been chucked out of everywhere else,” she says.

Janet set up the project in the hope of catching the kids that were hardest to reach.
Many have brought themselves up from an early age, their alcoholic or drug-addicted parents unable to cope. The Crib runs a number of projects aimed at improving community relations.

Last Sunday a group of kids cooked and served a roast dinner for elderly people living in the local area. Janet also pioneered the ‘Trading Places’ scheme, in which young people accompany Hackney police officers on the beat to see things from their perspective.

“Young people need a voice,” she says, “We teach them to stand up for themselves. But we also want older people to see that they are part of the solution.”

With guns and knives showing an increasing presence on Hackney’s streets, the need for a safe place for kids has never been greater. “The older guys get the younger ones to do their dirty work for them because they know the police won’t stop them” says Junior. “It’s young kids shooting people now. They think that’s what you’ve got to do to stay alive.”

In January this year, a petrol bomb was thrown into the small, ill-equipped building and ten computers were destroyed. Where young people did their homework and improved their CVs there is only a bare room of blackened walls and broken glass.

But the staff remain optimistic: “Sometimes I think, is it all worth it?” admits Janet, “But I know in my heart I’m doing the right thing. If I had to die for them, I would.”

Copyright of The Hackney Post