‘The Villa Crossmedia project was founded roughly four years ago, but I started out eight months back. The young people who come here, who look us up, would all love to get in-volved with media. On the project, we engage with people from the ages 16 to 25. Anyone who walks through the door either gets referred to me, Jessy, Ashley or Darren, the coordi-nators of CSV and VxM.’

Stepping stone to any career‘We strive to focus on hard-to-

reach people, but pretty much any-one can join in. Everyone’s different, but we do take pride in taking on the former. Hard-to-reach, this means the unemployed or hauling from dif-fi cult social backgrounds. Youth un-employment is pretty bad over here, a lot of people I know are currently out of job. When they do fi nally fi nd something, it’s usually not the kind of work they really want to be doing. For them, it’s just a pay check which allows them to buy things, to sur-vive. CSV and Villa Crossmedia on the other hand, are stepping stones to any career, not just something in media. They get to work on some-thing they enjoy and in the mean-while fi gure out what they want to do in life.’

Confidence‘We’ve got plenty of successes so

far. A volunteer called Mason for ex-ample, he started off here and ended up doing a media course at univer-sity. Many of our other volunteers are now in good jobs, telling us they gained the confi dence through their

work here, that they fi nally dared to go out and look something worth-while. Maybe it’s due to the fact that we’re multidisciplinary. People can come in and pick what they want to do, be it photography, radio, record their own tracks, contribute to the VxM magazine or take part in the Black Forum. We’ve got a great thing going here.’

Black Forum‘How the Black Forum started? Ba-

sically, we were having a discussion one day and we looked around and noticed all of us were black, sharing pretty much the same ideas, views and visions. From there on, it de-veloped naturally. It evolved into us meeting up once a week, discussing topics close to our hearts and issues that affected us. The Black Forum has been running for quite a while now, but we can still fi nd enough to discuss every meeting. Topics like stop and search, discrimination and racial inequality. We’d also love to get involved in mentoring.’

Possesses great strength ‘Sometimes, it just feels like we

don’t have a voice in Ipswich. Es-pecially when it comes to topics like stop and search. We’re work-ing with the council at the moment and they’ve pointed out that a black person is more likely to be stopped and searched than a white person. Funnily enough, only three per cent actually end up being arrested, which is a rather stupid number.’

‘We bring out a magazine too. It’s called Amari, meaning: ‘possesses great strength. I’d love to see Amari becoming self-sustainable, even after the VxM project. Topics featured? A lot of local artists, fashion, mu-sic. We try and keep the subjects and contributions open to everyone. It need to be fresh and defi nitely not too depressing.’

Sharna Michael is a young woman who definitely knows what she wants to do in her community. At 22, she is currently involved at CSV clubhouse and VxM project as a Youth Engagement officer. On top of that, she leads the Black Forum, a platform for black youngsters trying to make their voices heard in Ipswich.

Words & Picture: Lynn Baes

You can fi nd Amari Magazine online, at: http://www.amari-magazine.co.uk

‘CSV and Villa Crossmedia are

stepping stones to any career’

‘We’ve got a good thing going here’