Providing a solution to youth violence..
We spoke with Justin Finlayson, the founder of United Borders. A dedicated, resilient man with a positive attitude towards helping the youth through education, music and providing a solution to youth violence in our communities.
Using a platform such as music has always been known as a great therapy for people who may have suffered trauma in their lives. Allowing our youth to take advantage of making music, learning new skills and providing a safe place for them to learn openly is truly a remarkable achievement in itself.
It is a pleasure to interview you for the magazine Justin.
1. How did United Borders get its start?
United Borders was started after the fatal shooting of James Owusu-Agyekum. A bright 22 year old, studying business in university, well known in Church Road because he went uni part time; as he was his mothers full time carer (his mother had heart issues which required her to have a fulltime carer). Gang members from a rival estate rode into Church Road to kill anyone from the Church Road area. They found James talking to his friend on his doorstep, James was shot multiple times in his back. He died in his ailing mothers arm reiterating “I was never involved in anything bad mum”. It was this tragic, seminal moment where I decided more had to be done.
2. Tell us about the bus?
I bought a double decker bus from my old bus company, converted the upper deck into a studio and classroom, put together a music course with a hackney based college called ‘Access 2 Music’. Then applied for a ‘cross border initiative’ grant from Brent council, to work the troubled rival estates Church Road and Stonebridge. We worked with rival gangs for 2 weeks and brought them to work together at the end of the course. You would have thought 2 rival gangs working together would be deemed a high priority project but Austerity had other plans.
3. What are your thoughts on black on black violence and led crime?
The term black on black violence was coined by ‘white on black’ men. Very convenient attaching race to social deprivation. We have been made the scapegoat for murder and yet the greatest mass murders on earth; world war 1 & 2 are never referred to as white on white violence. The physical attacks, lynching, murders caused by the Ku Klux Klan, was never referred to as white on black crime. I’d further add the same could be said for slavery. If we look closer to home, right here in the UK, Stephan Laurence was murdered by a Gang of racist white attackers. As high profile as that murder was, it still wasn’t referred to as white on black crime. So I don’t see a need to racialise these smaller matters, when the larger racial crimes aren’t referred to in that way.
4. How is the government getting it wrong, what could they be doing differently about knife crime?
The bus is something we all have hopped on at some point in time. It’s a familiar space and very iconic. To be able to hold lessons on board a bus, record music, introduce our students to different areas of art from photography, videographer, fashion design to Yoga! Plus self defence classes, just goes to show how much we can get out of a small area on limited resources. The bus allows us to go into rival neighbourhoods and repeat our strategy there too. Our overall aim is to bring unity in communities broken apart by violence and help our young people achieve greatness in ways we can amplify and they can be proud of. After each course we have graduation ceremonies for our students, family and friends. This reinforces the effort that they have put into their creativity. For young people, dealing with complicated family challenges and often expelled and over policed, plus on the lookout for violence, it takes a lot to focus on one thing with all this external factors in mind.
Our motto is simple ‘You try, We amplify’ and ‘music is our only weapon’. Both quotes are self explanatory and exemplify who we are as a charity and what we expect from our students. I honestly feel that the government is getting it right, I don’t feel that this was an accident but rather design. With people in higher spaces I only have one simple question, what would happen to your family household if your budget was slashed to 1/4 of it’s original income? Imagine the challenges which would arise from that?
According to Helen Hayes MP for Dulwich and West Norwood ’causes of appalling increases in knife and gun crime are complex and so are the solutions but Tory cuts (#cutscrime) of almost £1bn from child services over 5 years are a good place to start’. So you see this isn’t just me sounding off but the dots have been firmly connected by all. Mental health, prison service, police, schools, NHS all are finding it almost impossible to maintain a good, quality service under the relentless cuts from the Tories. Now juxtapose this with the £1bn made readily available to the DUP (within days) from the Prime Minister Theresa May when she needed to secure seats for her election win, you start to understand that the government can find money for what it places value on. Can the same person responsible for creating a ‘hostile environment’ whilst she was home secretary, (which saw hundreds of the Windrush generation illegally deported to a country which some hadn’t seen since they were toddlers) be a compassionate, caring person for a community in chronic shortage of finance and hope? Is this the same prime minster who had to be berated for her not meeting the victims and families in the Grenfell disaster? She admitted that her initial response ‘wasn’t good enough’ and that ‘lessons will be learned’ it appears to me that black life being lost in the capital is just that, a lesson.
5. The United Borders bus got destroyed, tell us about that?
My bus was burned down by vandals in the countryside, as a result I had to become a campaigner and appeal for funding to buy a new bus. I set up a GoFundMe account and raised £5k through the generosity of the public. I won a prestigious leap award a few months afterwards and I then had a generous benefactor called Merian Global, who offered to buy me a brand new bus but this time making it even better inside! They donated £45k, I bought another bus and a company called Secworks refurbished the upper and lower deck, it truly is beautiful now. Sonos have partnered with United Borders too and they have fitted wireless speakers throughout the bus! We are extremely fortunate.
6. You are using music and recording to draw youth together. Tell us about this?
We deliver a course where each young person has to create their own track. They have free license to create what they want, we only guide. Once the song is created, we question what is written and get them to pull the lyrics apart and explain their piece of art. With trust and time, the message within their music becomes more authentic but as with any initial meeting, you’re feeling each other out, over time we show our true selves.
The message doesn’t have to sit right with us because music is therapy and within therapy you may revisit traumas or things which are quite dark in nature. As long as young people are expressing themselves, then we can clearly see where their heart and mind currently is, without asking intrusive questions. If our students create an authentic piece and the MAP (morals and principles) is aligned with our own ethics, we shoot a music video and plug it into the main social media sites but key is, the message has to be positive or authentic. We don’t glory the gory but we do teach them how to shoot their own music videos but they have to promote it solo if it isn’t to our ethical standards. We get different young people from different estates to work together on projects, this helps to bring down tensions and fosters a view of wanting to work with another area because this expands your fanbase. Getting young people to see another area as an opportunity to grow is a key element in community unity.
7. What are your plans for United Borders going forward?
Moving forward United Borders will be moving into residential education. We work after hours and don’t turn our backs on young people, this is proper social work because we are supporting all, young people and family. The environments that young people are in aren’t conducive to their long term well being. So bringing young people out of those environments and connecting them to greener surroundings is where we will be pursing our next phase. This summer we will be joining forces with Mentivity and a young law student in Cornwall Called Rebecca Oliver and bringing young people from the ‘city to the sea’. Surfing and sounds is the only pressure! No postcode drama, just enjoying youth, like we used to. I don’t really like speaking down or at youth and telling them anything because it’s just not effective.
8. What you would like the youth to know?
I would say my son has nearly been killed, just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time and I thank God that he survived. My son wasn’t the only person bleeding that night, the whole family, extended family and friends were all wounded. This is affecting us all. With all that trauma and still supporting a son who still struggles with his ordeal psychologically, I have still dedicated my life work to being a part of the solution. I have nothing but love for our young people and I’m desperate to stem this loss of life and replace that with us winning in life.
Stay blessed, All Love, Justin.
By Marian Kwei