My neighbourhood

I live in a small town, which mostly consists of Victorian terraced houses.
We moved here when our son was just born 11 years ago, and we love it here.
This is our home, a multi-cultural town with friendly faces; schools, shops and sports facilities; several churches and a mosque; the countryside, the Grand Union Canal and a river nearby ... perfect, you might say!

Over the last two years things have changed ...
You may remember me writing about street fights between two feuding extended families, which finally ended in a young man being beated to death.
The court case has not long finished, and for now at least, things seem to have calmed down there.

Then, recently, there were several police raids in houses across the town. Weapons and drugs were found and arrests made.

Yesterday, a house just four doors away, was raided.
We watched the police haul out cannabis plants and associated equipment all day!
Seems, the whole house was used for the growing of cannabis, and nobody actually lived there!
The last tenant moved out a year ago, and although we have seen a guy come and go, he has never spoken to anybody ...

The strange thing is that rather than worrying about having a cannabis factory on our doorstep, people seem just relieved that it wasn't weapons, harder drugs or worse, that was found ...

This is my home, where I am raising my children!!
I am praying for our protection, and that the recent events will stop!

Wow SubhanAllah!

May Allah keep you and your family safe!

Yeah its always sad to hear when your neighbourhood is getting messed up but atleast the Pl;oice seem to be doing something about it. I remember a lot of raids took place near where I live because of the same thing about canabis, on quite a few occasions it was Chinese immigrants renting out houses and making plants.

oh its really difficult
may Allah keep you and your family in safe in sha allah

Greetings.

Oh thats terrible! May Allah Taala protects you and your family.

DaNgErOuS MiNdS said:

Yeah its always sad to hear when your neighbourhood is getting messed up but atleast the Pl;oice seem to be doing something about it. I remember a lot of raids took place near where I live because of the same thing about canabis, on quite a few occasions it was Chinese immigrants renting out houses and making plants.

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Yep its sad...in some neighbourhoods you see the houses being shut off one by one...windows smashed by thugs and then it looks like a ghost-town...subhanAllah....May Allah keep us all safe. Ameen.

Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers.

Sorry Glo that ur going through this, May Allah keep ur Family safe. Have u considered moving?

Like I said, we love this place.
We have no plans to move as yet ... not unless things don't get better or indeed get worse.

I am a great believer in making ones neighbourhood a better place. You can't do that if you move at the first sign of trouble.
But only time will tell - I may yet change my mind on that ...

Greetings and peace be with you glo, sadly I feel your problem is pretty much nationwide, we suffer from the same kind of problems too.

Try setting up a Street Pastor scheme in your area, it takes ones person to recognise the need in the community. You may know that I have been a Street Pastor for six months now in a neighbouring community, my intention was always to try and get it started in my community.

By talking to a number of people we are having a first meeting on the 20th of this month to see if there are enough volunteers. Ten people from my church have shown an interest most of them women.

There may well be a scheme running in one of your neighbouring towns. Check out Street Pastors at… http://www.streetpastors.co.uk/Setupanewarea/tabid/491/Default.aspx

You just need to believe that you can make a difference.

In the spirit of searching for an inner peace that surpasses all understanding

Eric

I am interested in the Street Pastor Scheme, Eric, and I love to read your stories of your own experiences.

Can I ask how closely you work with the local police/police community support officers?
I imagine that laypeople could unwittingly put themselves or others at risk, if they don't understand local issues and/or police procedure ...

Looking forward to your reply.

This reminds me of a situation I became aware of in my own neighborhood. I was out watering the roses and all the other foliage I have surrounding my house when I noticed three or four cop cars parked at one of my neighbors houses. I walked over to see what was going on(I'm nosey)and one of the cops informed me that my neighbor is not allowed to be within 25ft of a child. Obviously a convicted sex offender. That sort of disturbed me because there are many children in my neighborhood and they ride around on their bikes all day long. It is very disconcerting when you realize that your quiet peaceful neighborhood might not be so safe after all.

we have a neighbourhood watch and hired a security firm for patrol units after few homes were robbed in 2006... for more than a year my neighbourhood becomes peaceful again... the whole community have to work together protecting the place...

P/S: My neighbourhood is also multi-racial and multi-religious....

Greetings and peace be with you glo,

I can only say that being a Street Pastor has been a profound experience for me.

We all have to undergo twelve training sessions, and undergo a CRB check with the police; because we come into contact with vulnerable people. This involves showing our ID like a passport and driving licence, and sending a form off.

It costs around £300 to put a person out on the street as a Street Pastor, mostly for the uniform and training. We are each asked to make a donation towards this; even if it is £10. The community and the churches fund the rest.

Our aim is to have enough volunteers so that we only have to go out once a month, some people volunteer to go out more often.

We meet on a Friday evening at 7.30 pm to be briefed by the police, they tell us about any hotspots and problems, and we go to all these trouble areas. We do not go out with the police, our role is more the Good Samaritan, we are not police informers, we strive to bring a little care into the community. We spend time in prayer and go out on the streets about 8pm. We take a half hour break about 10pm and finish around 1am. When we first started we went out in a group of four, two on each side of the road and about fifty metres apart.

Now we go out in twos my partner is in her sixties and has trouble walking any distance, yet somehow us oldies feel relaxed about approaching a dozen youths drinking and being disruptive. We are ordinary citizens with no power, there are no targets to meet, this gives us the time to be with one person for as long as we feel a need.

The police and the local paper have given Street Pastors in our area credit for reducing low level crime and I feel this is a wonderful sideline. I honestly do not know how this works because we do not go telling kids to stop crime rather we try and promote a sense of caring for their friends and caring for others.

We do not go out to preach, but people know we are from the local churches, because we have Street Pastors written in big letters on our jackets. Some people ask us questions about God, some people have asked us to pray for them and their families.

The main site for street pastors is at:

http://www.streetpastors.co.uk/

In the spirit of praying for safer communities.

Eric

That's truly inspiring, Eric!

Have you encountered serious incidents or felt at risk yourself?

Greetings and peace be with you glo,

When I started with Street Pastors I was very clear in my mind that I would not be doing any self defence or running. My partner is less able than I am; and she couldn’t run or do self defence even if she wanted to. In a way this makes it easier because we really do have to put our trust in prayer and the power of God.

We had been out for some time on our first night out before we realized that none of us had taken a phone. We had the choice to go back and pick one up, but we chose to rely on the power of prayer instead.
I cannot explain the calm I feel when confronted with situations I should really be fearful off. I find it a great comfort to know there are people back at the church praying for us. The prayer for peace and serenity helps me find peace despite all the turmoil around

Lord grant me the peace and serenity to live with the things I cannot change
Give me the courage to change the things I can.
And give me the wisdom to know the difference.

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I know I can’t change other people, I can only strive to find an inner peace, somehow it feels as if I absorb other people’s anger, a little like a sponge.

In the spirit of praying for an inner peace that surpasses all understanding.

Eric