What's it like where I live?

Yara Shaikh (19) is from the south London district of Camberwell (Borough of Southwark). Here, she describes life in her area...

 “In Camberwell, everyone just clicks; there isn't really an issue with different ethnicities and cultures. I've lived around the same people for years and you are always bumping into someone you know, or you know the person who owns this or that market stall – it kind of reminds me of EastEnders a bit so I like it. To me it's different to most areas because it has so much community spirit.

Tragedy in Council flats... Click HERE!

There are a lot of old blocks of flats around my area and there are so many areas that are renovating flats; there is a lot of construction. I feel like the area doesn't look pretty. More lights, more decoration would be nice. When I head to areas like Chelsea and Kensington and there is renovation happening to a building, they always have lovely illustrated or painted boxed covers to hide the scaffolding, but in my neighborhood all you see is the grey structures and pipes. I feel that whoever comes up with the ideas for covering scaffolding in creative ways needs to spread the love everywhere, instead of just keeping it in Chelsea. If your area looks pretty, you feel happier and have more pride in looking after it, whereas if it looks all doom and gloom you couldn't care less.

Security

Generally I feel safe here – but sometimes, especially in winter when it gets darker earlier, I do this thing where I keep my keys near my knuckles. It was a trick my mum taught me where you put the keys in between the spaces of your fingers and keep your hand in your pocket so if anyone tries to attack you out of nowhere when you punch them it will be harder.

Around here there are a lot of undercover police but you can see their belt and stuff. So that makes me feel like there is something bad going on, rather than making me feel safe. Also many of the community support officers, they just walk around pestering young people that don't need to be pestered and are just innocently going about their day.

I don't feel that threatened in my area; there's always someone drunk in the park or someone dealing drugs at the end of my street, but they won’t bother you if you don't bother them, so: no eye contact and just keep walking and you'll be fine.

Technology

I am cautious of technology knowing too much about you. I don’t want a phone that encodes my fingerprints, I feel like it's too much, too invasive. And even with the Xbox, because the internet signal is always on, the camera that's part of it is on too. So I would never get that; I don't want a camera peering into my living room.

Big brother?

Nothing seems to happen without technology any more. I was on the street recently and someone asked me for directions and immediately I went to type it into Google Maps. Now that everything is so accessible at the end of your finger, I feel like it gives young people another reason to be lazy. I always make sure that when I am with someone, I turn my phone face down because I think it's rude otherwise.

Transport

I use the Transport for London journey planner website to track if the trains are working. For travel, I use the map that's embedded in my phone – I type in the postcode or name and just follow the line. It's really convenient because I get lost a lot, my sense of direction is really bad!

Leisure

In my area there isn't a lot going on, from art to music to community events. Every Saturday, there's an NHS van which comes and tests blood pressure levels for free. It's cool but that applies to the older generation more. There are farmers' markets too, but they are for older people. So we just head to the cinema or the 02 Arena; culturally, my area doesn't offer a lot...

Urban renewal?

The environment

It depends what you grow up around. When I was in school, in science class we always talked about global warming and it was always something that was brought to my attention. But I guess in everyday life you don't really stop and think: is what I am doing harming the planet? I would like to see it implemented into law, so in your day-to-day endeavors it's something that you have to do – made part of your daily habits. In supermarkets at the moment you are encouraged to bring your own bags, but there's no law about it, so it's hard to create change – all bags should be recyclable and we should charge for plastic bags. Social media campaigns only help temporarily; we need to enforce it more so it becomes force of habit.

What's missing?

I would like my area to be cleaned up and more maintained, with less people on street corners doing bad stuff. I came back from Oxford Street earlier today into my area, and it's so different. The difference in buildings tells you exactly where you are – in my area the drains are busted, the paintwork is peeling, but in west London everything is clean, the buildings are white marble. My area is dirty. Then you stop and think, well, obviously drug dealers are going to be dealing here because there aren’t any crowds here and the buildings are not very well maintained so the dealers think it's OK for them to do their thing here… There's grey brickwork in my area, no white marble; the bricks have damp and mold around them because the drains are busted. There's bins everywhere, overflowing.”

Adapted from a Guardian article 

Questions / to do:

1. What does Yara like about the area in which she lives?
2. What does she dislike about it?
3. What does she think should be done to improve it?
4. Find a map of south London on the Web and print it out; highlight where Camberwell is located.
5. List basic facts and figures on the London Borough of Southwark.
6. Print out a few photos of Camberwell that show the different parts of the district.
7. Explain why you would like/not like to move to Camberwell.

Assignment:

1. Write a description of life in your own area (take pictures!).
2. List suggestions to improve your area.