Chuka paid a visit to the Palace Project last week and was really inspired by the centre and its staff.

The Palace is a community centre and youth group on the Palace Road Estate in Streatham Hill. It offers a range of activities for local residents of all ages, as well as a space for the community to relax and interact. Chuka was given the guided tour by The Palace Project’s manager, Glen Neil and Terry McAteer, a member of the Estate’s Tenants’ and Residents’ Association.

On offer are activities for elderly residents, a mother and baby group, and dance and guitar lessons for the community. But it was The Palace’s youth activities that particularly impressed Chuka. With a recording studio and internet access, up to 50 young people use the centre’s facilities every day. Chuka was full of praise for The Palace’s youth activities, saying ‘It’s a great space for young people
to be creative, active and positive’.

Glen and his colleagues have also been helping to provide a voice to local young people on issues that affect them, through Palace films. After a series of deaths of young people in Lambeth at the hands of guns, the centre helped local kids to make a film to respond to the killings and discourage gun crime in the community. The result, ‘Fast Train to Fool City’ was produced in a week, and features contributions from musicians, artists and over one hundred Lambeth teenagers. Interviewing both victims and perpetrators of gun crime, it has been taken up by Lambeth Police and was distributed to every school in the Borough.

The film is available on youtube in 3 parts, we’ve embedded part one below:

For information on The Palace, visit their website.

Carys Afoko