Lights, camera, action on Wokingham graffiti!
Budding Wokingham editors, film-makers and reporters tackled the difficult issue of graffiti as young people from the Wokingham borough took part in a council project to raise awareness about the problem.
As part of the council’s liveability project, the waste and recycling team, community safety and children’s services teamed up with The Cultural Partnership and specialist media company RealTime to invite young people to join a project exploring the causes behind graffiti and the thoughts and views of local people.
Taking on the researching and writing for the Wokingham DVD, the young people, including brothers Nathan and Andrew Wilson, aged 12 from Wokingham, took to the streets of the borough to discover opinions on how and why graffiti blights our communities. They also carried out interviews with the borough council’s waste and recycling officers who are responsible for organising the clean-up of graffiti on the borough’s streets.
Wokingham Waste and recycling manager Peter Baveystock said: “We are always looking for new ways to tackle the issue of graffiti and this project was a new initiative for us. We set out to look at the causes of graffiti, to help us understand how we could prevent it. The project has also uncovered some new areas for the council to address such as graffiti being used as a tool of intimidation amongst young people.
“Working with children’s services, we will now use this film to open up discussion with young people in schools, as well as helping us in our efforts to tackle graffiti.”
Also working with the Wokingham young people on the DVD was 17-year-old Callum Kirkland, a local street-artist from Kreative Dezign. This is a company of young people who are working and fundraising to set up DJ and music workshops for other teens. Callum spends much of his time talking to local youngsters about street art. Wokingham-based Callum said: “It’s important that young people are made aware of the differences between graffiti and street art. Graffiti is illegal and is vandalism. It makes the area look trashy. It gives street art and people who use spray cans as an artistic medium a bad name. I was pleased to be involved with this project.”
The Wokingham DVD will now be used as a discussion tool in schools and with community groups. Word of the project has been spreading thick and fast since the launch, with requests for copies of the DVD coming from as far away as Canada.
Wokingham Mayor Cllr Annette Drake, who officially opened the première on June 7, said: “This innovative film will be a really useful tool for local schools and community groups to educate young people about the negative effects graffiti can have on their neighbourhood. We hope that this will reduce the amount of graffitti around the borough and I congratulate everyone involved in making this film.”
As part of the council’s liveability project, the waste and recycling team, community safety and children’s services teamed up with The Cultural Partnership and specialist media company RealTime to invite young people to join a project exploring the causes behind graffiti and the thoughts and views of local people.
Taking on the researching and writing for the Wokingham DVD, the young people, including brothers Nathan and Andrew Wilson, aged 12 from Wokingham, took to the streets of the borough to discover opinions on how and why graffiti blights our communities. They also carried out interviews with the borough council’s waste and recycling officers who are responsible for organising the clean-up of graffiti on the borough’s streets.
Wokingham Waste and recycling manager Peter Baveystock said: “We are always looking for new ways to tackle the issue of graffiti and this project was a new initiative for us. We set out to look at the causes of graffiti, to help us understand how we could prevent it. The project has also uncovered some new areas for the council to address such as graffiti being used as a tool of intimidation amongst young people.
“Working with children’s services, we will now use this film to open up discussion with young people in schools, as well as helping us in our efforts to tackle graffiti.”
Also working with the Wokingham young people on the DVD was 17-year-old Callum Kirkland, a local street-artist from Kreative Dezign. This is a company of young people who are working and fundraising to set up DJ and music workshops for other teens. Callum spends much of his time talking to local youngsters about street art. Wokingham-based Callum said: “It’s important that young people are made aware of the differences between graffiti and street art. Graffiti is illegal and is vandalism. It makes the area look trashy. It gives street art and people who use spray cans as an artistic medium a bad name. I was pleased to be involved with this project.”
The Wokingham DVD will now be used as a discussion tool in schools and with community groups. Word of the project has been spreading thick and fast since the launch, with requests for copies of the DVD coming from as far away as Canada.
Wokingham Mayor Cllr Annette Drake, who officially opened the première on June 7, said: “This innovative film will be a really useful tool for local schools and community groups to educate young people about the negative effects graffiti can have on their neighbourhood. We hope that this will reduce the amount of graffitti around the borough and I congratulate everyone involved in making this film.”
Wokingham Borough Council
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