(footage by Joe Bream)
Heeley
City Farm, an oasis in the heart of Sheffield, is fighting to prevent young
people from entering a life of crime. In response to devastating budget cuts to
Sheffield’s youth services, the charity is determined to offer young people an
alternative to the void left by diminishing provision.
The city farm, in the
urban district of Heeley, Sheffield, is a community based and led training,
employment and youth enterprise. Along with facilities such as a café and
children’s playground for the community, the charity also teaches and supports
young people and adults with learning difficulties.
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| Young people bringing in horses for the night |
Sam Bennett, from the
human resources and finance team at Heeley City Farm, said that cuts to council
spending on youth services has left only a few community centres and youth
groups in the area. He said that the farm offers practical work, team building
and confidence boosting activities. “They come and they’re allowed a bit of
responsibility, so it’s their responsibility to bring the animals in at night
or clean their living areas.”
Young people can
volunteer or attend work placements at the farm, and adults with learning
difficulties are offered supported placements. Participants learn life and
vocational skills through looking after the animals and garden centre. There is
also a farm kitchen where participants can learn catering and hospitality
skills, as well as classrooms to teach a range of vocational courses.
Mr Bennett, aged 24,
epitomises the benefit of the charity; he left university without a degree and
was unemployed for a while. He then started working at Heeley City Farm as an
office assistant and 18 months later he has worked his way up the ladder.
Cuts ‘hit hard’
The government’s
recent austerity measures have hit young people hard. They have scrapped the
Future Jobs fund, tripled student fees and caused local councils to cut
spending on youth services. Sheffield City Council has cut spending this year
by £80 million out of an annual budget of 1.5 billion. This has led to £17
million being cut from services for children, young people and families.
Mr Bennett said that
Heeley City Farm relies on many sources of funding, but they have still been
affected; “With council funding gone for youth work, we’re having to rely more
on private donations and to be more inventive and diversify in order to find
the money to help fund everything.”
Sheffield Futures is a
council-funded charity which runs the Connexions careers services for young
people in Sheffield. The charity funds the ‘Young Rangers Course’
for NEET’s (young people not in employment, education or training) at Heeley
City Farm. However, they have had to cut 95 jobs out of their 368 staff, whilst
£2.4 million has been cut from Connexions this year.
Emma Taylor,
information and marketing team leader at Sheffield Futures said; “We have been
hit hard, its been awful and we’ve lost a lot of highly skilled workers, it’s
not right that we had to cut as many as we did for a service that is so
valuable.” Sheffield Futures said that they worked hard to make sure young
people aren’t affected by the cuts, but Mrs Taylor admitted, “It’s been very
tough.”
Destined for a life of crime
Mr Bennett believes
that when less money is spent on youth services, more is needed for addressing
the crime that results from young people being left without provision. “A lot
of the young people we work with aren’t at school, so having them come here and
help look after animals means they aren’t up the road mugging somebody,
breaking into houses or getting involved in drugs and gangs, it gives them
something to do that means something, that means they aren’t then destined for
a life of crime.”
Mrs Taylor said that
cutting youth services will have a knock on effect on crime; “NEET figures have
been terrible for the city, we are working to lower these as we speak, but
there will still be somebody out there who might not have had any intervention
from us.”
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| An Oasis in the middle of the city |
Despite the funding
cuts, Mr Bennett believes that Heeley City Farm can be an oasis for the
community and its young people; “This is quite a novel environment to teach
people, everybody likes looking after animals so we’re teaching them the very
basic things, like maths, that they might struggle to learn at school, but in a
different way that is fun.”
