Blog

My experience with the BBC Lifeline Appeal

Tuesday 22nd November 2011

The BBC Lifeline Appeal team came to film me over the course of two days. This gave me the opportunity to represent Leap and share some of my personal experiences. They started to film for the appeal during a recent Quarrel shop.

A Quarrel shop is an accredited course in conflict resolution/ theory provided by Leap to create young leaders and facilitators. It helps build self awareness, understanding the meaning of conflict, what different conflicts could be from a personal to a global scale, and empowers young people to collectively resolve conflict in a positive way with the absence of violence.

I initially started at Leap by attending a Quarrel shop in early 2010. I was referred by ‘Connexions’ which is another organisation that worked with young people. To be honest I wasn’t warm with the idea at first but this feeling immediately changed when I was told a free lunch would be provided & THEN meeting some females who were going to be part of the course as well. After my first day at Leap, I enjoyed the training immensely and learned an ample amount about myself. This was the start of an amazing journey which changed my life from one of violence, gang related crime and drug trafficking to being a respected member of my community. The ‘quarrel shop’ helped me to achieve goals and aspirations I thought I would never be able to accomplish.

The BBC started to film whilst I was part of the coordination team supporting the staff & participants on the course. I had a wonderful time and felt really engaged with the young people. I can confidently say that all of the young people have a great potential to highly achieve in life and I’m looking forward to working with them in the future.

The second day of filming started at Tooting leisure centre in the morning. Unfortunately I was late but I had a valid excuse. The traffic was bad!! We got off to a flying start and I got stuck into the gym straight away. We then went to my office and they filmed me whilst I got on with a usual day of work for my business. I then had an interview answering questions about my life and experiences. I enjoyed the interview because I had time to reflect on my progress from a young age to recent events.

Finally we went to a nightclub called Native Tongue in Barbican, so that Brooke Kinsella who presented the Lifeline appeal, could interview me. It was more than a pleasure to meet with her as I admire all of the work she has been doing in local communities. She was very laid back and had a lovely personality. Brooke and I reflected on my progress since starting at Leap and how they have helped me change my life and achieve goals I thought I would never be able to accomplish.

It was great to finally watch the appeal on Sunday, I was very proud of myself and I felt I had achieved another goal.

By Joshua Brown, Social Media Researcher