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David Lawrence visits 3D Drumhapel, Glasgow, a winner in the 2005 Community Project awards
‘I came here to get my wings; now it’s time for me to fly.’ The town/suburb/area – people seem quite unsure what to call it – that is Drumchapel, on the western edge of Glasgow, came about as a result of a brave vision in the 1950s. It was part of a determined effort throughout the United Kingdom to remove the blot of urban slums and re-house whole populations in places where the air was fit to breathe and there was room for families to thrive. And as happened in so many other places, along with a massive new housing scheme – many of the houses intended to be only ‘temporary’ – came promises of all the facilities that would make a vast development into some-thing that felt more like a community for its more than 30,000 residents.
And Drumchapel was a success. It was an era of manufacturing industry and full-employment. The Goodyear factory, Singer, the shipbuilding yards along the banks of the Clyde, between them provided thousands of good jobs, many of them held by residents of Drumchapel. The community flourished; its shopping centre bustled with activity. It hardly mattered that the promises of facilities never materialized.
And then, the bottom fell out of life. Between 1974 and 1986 one third of the jobs in Glasgow disappeared. By 1991, at its low point, there were around 2,400 jobs in Drumchapel of itself, many of those consisting of poorly paid retail work. It is not uncommon to find families in Drumchapel who are third-generation unemployed. Eighty percent of families are on housing benefit and less than a third of households have employment as their main source of income. The once-thriving shopping centre has declined until today most of the units are shuttered and rotting.
A survey in the year 2000 revealed some of the almost inevitable results. Though Drumchapel has noticeably less theft than the Strathclyde region as a whole – many people have little to steal – it has almost twice as much violent crime and almost three times as much vandalism. The proportion of mothers under the age of 20 is more than twice the average for the area. Absence from school with-out permission is twice the national average.
a question of belief
Surrounded by conditions capable of crushing the strongest of people, it seems close to irrelevant to note that Community Project Award winner 3D Drumchapel sets out to help people believe in themselves. Into a situation that cries out for massive investment and government intervention, some of which is slowly materialising, the 3.5 full time workers (and band of volunteers) bring only their faith in the power of God’s love to change people and the capacity of people to respond.
The faith is staggering; much of the rest is modest, including the cramped quarters above the betting shop in the run-down shopping centre.
To appreciate what is done, you have to share the hard-headed understanding of the depth of the problem. The decline of Drumchapel has bred a kind of hopelessness among many of its citizens. Written off by the economy, after a while they learn to write themselves off. If opportunity should show up, the danger is that there would be few people around to meet it.
So the task of people who want to change Drumchapel for the better is not simply to provide the facilities that should have been built back in the 1950s but to persuade people that it is worthwhile making the effort, that they have as much right to enjoyment and success as the rest of society. It is to convince people who have grown up believing that every door is locked against them that in fact the door is just waiting to be pushed.
modest means, ambitious aims
Grasp that and you can appreciate that while a trip away for the day with the children during the school holidays is a good thing, a day consisting of a visit to the library in the morning, followed by a picnic and fun in the local park could well be more revolutionary. The Thursday sandwich lunch around the dining table in the small front room may seem just a pleasant break but for some of those involved, sitting down together as a family over a meal is a new experience. The weekly baking session for mums and children is no doubt a useful exercise in domestic economy but far more important is the fact that for some of the mums it is a rare excursion into doing something with their child which involves two-way communication.
Some of the activities that focus more squarely on the mothers show a similar mixture of modest means and ambitious aims. The Monday morning session is usually devoted to some kind of learning – usually in response to a request from the women themselves. Currently an out-side tutor is leading a course on self-presentation, covering topics like self-confidence, dressing for an interview and make-up. Photography had been the subject of another recent course, culminating in an exhibition of the women’s work to celebrate International Women’s Day. One of the members of the group had been so taken with the subject that she had gone on to study photography at college.
And just as teaching the children that the library belongs to them is important, so the sessions at the leisure centre pool or the evenings out at the swimming pool all serve the dual purpose of relaxation and opening the door to a world that most of us take for granted.
a crowded calendar
A typical week at 3D Drumchapel – mostly focussed on mothers and children in the rooms above the betting shop, but with a strong strand of children’s work in other local premises - would take too many pages to begin to describe adequately but it clearly requires a great deal of energy and commitment from the staff. Project co-ordinator Kirsty Douglas is an English graduate who went on to qualify as a midwife before deciding that it was not the career she wanted to follow. Working in a restaurant to pay the bills, she was casting around for a worthwhile future when she met one of the directors of 3D. One Sunday in church she found herself being asked whether she would consider applying for the job. She thought they were mad, but two years on, as she juggles a portfolio of sponsors who include the local Social Inclusion Partnership, BBC Children in Need, the Church of Scotland, the National Lottery, the Scottish Churches Community Trust and the Lloyds-TSB foundation, the Anchor Foundation, the Souttar Charitable Trust, Glasgow’s Local Action Fund and the Robertson Trust, while at the same time drawing on her training to support young mothers and their children, it begins to look as if 3D didn’t make a bad choice.
a passion for the work
And while Kirsty took time out to talk to Reform, and then moved straight into a meeting with a representative of a major funder, Marion Lindsay held the fort for the Thursday lunch. Asked what brought her to 3D, Marion answers simply ‘God’. After 12 years with the Roman Catholic arch-diocese, working with severely learning impaired children, Marion was clear that she was not interested in the offer of a full-time job at 3D. But she came to look five years ago, out of politeness as much as anything, and was caught up in the vision. A mother of two herself, you would be hard pressed to distinguish Marion from the young mothers with whom she works. She is the perfect foil in group activities and a clearly a welcome visitor when she calls on people in their homes. Her easy familiarity with adults and children alike belies a passion for the work, and a hard-headed under-standing of what the job is about.
‘Things are beginning to change here now that housing is getting better but many people have grown up in houses where conditions have been very poor. Education hasn’t always been a priority in the area so people have come to believe that they can’t achieve. They’ve seen what’s happened with their mum and dad and they go on to imitate it. So there’s a real lack of hope, and a lack of motivation and a lack of commitment in people. So what we’re trying to do is to give them God’s hope and show them there is a way forward, that there is potential in each and every one of them. That they can achieve, if they just put in the commitment – if they just go out and take the first step.’
So there is more to it than making people feel comfort-able crossing the threshold of a library or even a college. It is about giving people a whole new perspective on them-selves and their lives – God’s perspective. And though much of what goes on at 3D might seem unremittingly secular to outside eyes, what underlies it is something else again. Which is why they speak with pride of the fact that some of the mothers asked for a course on the Christian faith, which has been now been running for some time under the guidance of Kathryn Price, the URC minister employed jointly by the local churches’ partnership. They call the sessions ‘Digging Deeper’ and by the time you read this, at least one of the members of the group, Karen, will have been baptized, together with her three children David, Rebecca and Chloe – as it happens, in the local United Reformed Church.
And the quote at the beginning? The words of a woman who came to 3D at a time of great personal and family stress. After two years of support she is no longer part of the project - success for 3D is measured by the people who have reached the point where they no longer need its help. Her newly found wings have taken her away on a college course. God’s perspective.
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The 2005 Community Project Awards are
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