Give Responsibility a Chance

Imagine living in an area where you grow up surrounded by drugs, violence, abuse, anti-social behaviour, prostitution, teenage pregnancy, alcoholism, unemployment ...

Imagine your norms, your take on life, your peer pressures, your experience of life, your expectations, your aspirations, your role models, your mind-set ...

Imagine watching as your friends turn to drugs, or to violence or to anti social behaviour, imagine the pressure that's on you to fit in as a human being ...

Then imagine being given an opportunity to take responsibility for a vehicle like the one above, to drive it for 5,000km to Africa as part of a team ...
And your first job is to raise the money to buy the vehicle and prepair it for the journey as well as kitting it out with aid for its destination.

This life changing operation goes on quietly behind the scenes, turning young offenders into responsible citizens, altering their perceptions, behaviours and beliefs.

The young people who attend such projects have the opportunity to grow, to learn about their positive traits as opposed to being stereotyped into believing their role in society. They learn not through being 'told' how to behave, but simply by being given the chance to shine.

On arrival in Africa they come face to face with abject poverty the like of which they have never seen, it makes their own homes appear like palaces, their own lives like those of kings. They meet people their own age who have nothing, no shops, no bling, no mobile phones, no crime, no anything (materially) but everything emotionally.

Their hardened hearts are wrenched open, most if not all are tearfull and forced to realise what they have and who they really are inside, beyond the mask they've adopted through their norms.

On the course of their self discovery, they become (instantly) protectors, they work as a team, they look after each other and take care of their vehicles, they turn from boys to men, from potentially limited to unlimited human beings.

When they return home, a trip to the shops can bring on tears of disbelief of the disparity between us as people, a sit down meal at a table full of food can have the same effect, they are now aware of the difference between life as a young person in the UK compared to the life of their new found friends in Africa. They now have a real view of people from another culture, from a different religious norm than their so called 'christian' country.

There is a down side (kidding really) because they have grown as human beings, they no longer fit into their old habits and social patterns, they are bigger than their old selves and therefore act as catalysts for change, inspiring their peers and friends towards higher aspirations and socially responsible projects.

Giving anyone a chance to shine is beneficial to the whole.
Specifically targeting the ones that are at the heart of the conflict in run down areas is effectively cutting anti social behaviour off at the knees, it turns vandals into victors, hell-raisers into heroes and invites out of the human animal ... the human being.

All we are saying is give responsibility a chance!