Doers IX: High Trees

Posted by irislapinski on August 4th, 2009

My next visit took me back to London. Or more precisely to Lambeth in South London.

Mike Cushman, a research fellow at the Information Systems and Innovation Group at the London School of Economics had been working with the High Trees Development Trust on a very interesting digital inclusion action research project between 2004 and 2006: PENCEIL or “How People Encounter E-illiteracy”

The research papers produced by Mike on:

• Non-users of computers in south London: their experiences and aspirations for use
• I’ve Never Tried It because I Don’t Like It: enabling technology choices

as well as Mike’s presentations and lectures about the subject are amongst the most interesting and grounded contributions to the digital inclusion debate I came across during this project.

Background: St.Martin’s Estate, Lambeth/ Tulse Hill

Mike Cushman wrote an area profile for PENCEIL which gives an idea of the basic economic and social data and also took pictures of the area:

“Located South of Brixton tube station the oldest parts of St.Martin’s Estate, Abbots Park and High Trees, were built in the late 1950s and 1960s.  The estate consists of 1282 dwellings including low-rise deck access blocks, four 6-storey tower blocks and a small number of houses. he estate consists of 1282 dwellings including low-rise deck access blocks, four 6-storey tower blocks

Analysis of data from the 2001 Census (Office of National Statistics, 2004) describe an estate which suffers considerable, but not extreme, economic hardship and the residents are largely drawn from groups whose lives are characterised by disruption and have limited resources to cope with adverse events such as redundancy, ill-health and school exclusion. The residents, typically, have low status jobs and poor qualifications. They suffer considerable overcrowding and have low car ownership. There are many single parent households and the residents are highly diverse, ethnically.”

Despite significant improvements and investment in regeneration Tulse Hill has seen a range of gang related crime including stabbings and shootings amongst young people in the area. In January 2009 one local resident stated that the violence was as bad as the one he saw growing up in violent suburbs of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

The Organisation: High Trees Community Development Trust

It all started in 1998 when three local residents, one of them Janice Owens, lead a campaign to ensure that the old and derelict St Martins Library Centre was used as a community resource. High Trees Community Development Trust was registered as a charity in February 2000 and received the library building as its asset. and received the library building as its asset.

The 10th Anniversary Report 1998-2008 gives a good overview of the past 10 years while the 2008-2012 Strategic Plan sets out the priorities for the next 5 years. From its humble beginnings the library has now become a vibrant adult learning, afterschool support and community centre which has turned the vision of its original founders into practice.

After years of being a lead trainer on IT and personal development, Margaret Jarrett has recently been become the new director of High Trees. A local resident and mother of 5 children she has been involved with High Trees for a long time. Stephen Kearney, Cyber Cycle Centre administrator and maths tutor, has been living in St Martins Estate since 1980 and was a great source of information for me. He was very generous with his time, showed me around and explained to me in detail the dynamics of the area and the estate in particular.

Activities

Adult learning Centre

High Tree runs a range of successful courses in key skills, ESOL, IT and personal development. In recent years they expanded the reach beyond the estate and became as a Preferred Provider of Adult Learning Services with Lambeth Council. They also started delivering adult learning provision in 15 Children Centres in South Lambeth.

Cyber-cycle Centre

High Trees also acquired the basement in Burnell House on the estate which was transformed into the Cyber-cycle Centre. During 2008 Red Ochre and the Development Trust Association conducted a feasibility study which identified a need for serviced office space for  local start-ups and social enterprises. As a result the Cyber-cycle Centre is now being rented out to different associations.

Prince’s Trust

After the successful completion of a pilot project in 2008 the Prince’s Trust and Lambeth College are running a range of courses for young people excluded from school.

Young People support – Safe Zone

There are a range of other activities run for and by young people locally including twice a week a popular “Safe Zone Homework Club”, a summer holiday programme called “Summer Safe Zone” as well as the “Right Track Saturday School” where young people write and record their own music. [The Summer Safe Zone 2008 was documented on video and once this is up on YouTube I will update this post]. High Trees is also the Lead for the Children’s Fund Being Healthy Projects.

UK Online Centre

High Trees is also a UK Online Centre and offers local people free access to the Internet. In 2008 a local resident completed a fundraising campaign in order to acquire an AbilityNet kit that upgraded one computer for people with sensory and physical impairments. one computer for people with sensory and physical impairments.

Users/ customers

As reflected in the 10th Anniversary report a broad range of people come to High Trees and according to Stephen about 9,000 people use the centre per year.

I think what is especially noticeable about High Trees is the large number of young people attending the centre with more than 50% of all monthly visitors younger than 25 years. Apparently the centre so popular with local young people that High Trees had to start thinking even more on how to work with them and whether a youth-managed space would be feasible.

Since the centre was set up there has been no vandalism by users who clearly consider the space as part of their community according to Margaret and Stephen.  Unfortunately, this is not one of the indicators that is being measured anywhere by funders.

Enterprise

As reflected in High Trees 5-year Strategic Plan entrepreneurship is one of the focus areas in order to achieve more financial sustainability for the centre. Beyond that there are a few examples of entrepreneurship-based projects:

• Youth Enterprise Project delivered by Red Ochre in which High Trees participated
• Community led evaluation of Stockwell URBAN II European Funding as documented in the 10th Anniversary Report. For this project High Trees recruited, trained and employed a pool of Community Researchers to undertake local work around community development, engagement, consultation and involvement. Five of these community researchers established a social enterprise after the completion of the project.

Volunteers

Until today High Trees is still very much a locally rooted and supported organisation with trustees and supporters being recruited amongst local residents. Especially for the different Safe Zone activities young local people are getting involved as mentors and tutors.

Challenges

In 2008 financial sustainability was clearly a challenge due to various multi-year funding streams running out, but it appears that the decline in revenues has been stopped.

Another challenge raised by Stephen and Margaret is the increasingly narrow focus on certain output targets by funders especially from the public sector. Often some of the funding requirements are actually counter-productive. One example: High Trees has to charge people for IT and adult learning courses if they are employed or not receiving any benefits. Due to the large number of people qualifying for free courses, the administrative costs of collecting fees are actually higher than the total amount of fees collected…

Final thoughts

While not expecting too much before I went, I was (positively) surprised by the passion, range of activities and success of High Trees. When Stephen showed me around the estate he told me that for the first 8 years living in St. Martins he was not aware that there was a community centre just a few hundred metres away from his flat. Today you cannot walk around the estate without people greeting him or asking him for advice. When they renovated the Cyber-Cycle Centre he was thinking about installing a panic button, now he laughs at the idea.

For me these small stories tell more about community living and about feeling secure in your local area than what any statistic can tell you. High Trees is not a fancy or modern building, but when spending time there you get a sense of the motivations of the initial founders and their legacy which is filled with life by many local residents of all ages.

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