Project HOPE: Why London, England?

8 more days to raise all the funds I need for Project HOPE via my Kickstarter page! So in honor of those 8 days, each day I will be posting more and more about Project HOPE!

So…. why am I going to London, England?

There are a few different reasons for England.

Possibly the simplest reason is when I arrive in England it will have been only the second country I have travelled to outside of the United States- I am going to Puerto Rico in October to photograph a wedding, but this will be the first time I travel abroad on my own. Quite honestly, I thought going to a place where I know they speak English as a first language as my first stop would be a really good idea. 

But the real reason is the riots.

Last August numerous riots broke out throughout London and several other towns in England after police officers shot and killed Mark Duggan on August 4. Immediately after the killing, riots and demonstrations broke out which led to many copycat riots throughout the country.

I remember seeing photographs online and reading all the different news articles and being completely shocked. Why was this happening? Why did people think it would okay to do this? How was this going to end? Were this riots going to spread around the entire UK?  Were people going to start doing this around the world?

Then I saw my friends on Facebook and tumblr who live in England and read their status updates and blog posts that were filled with complete and utter fear, of their friends and family who had their houses and cars destroyed, who were terrified to leave their homes to go to work, who had friends that were out rioting and how angry they were at them… and it went on for days.

Though it seems to the rest of the world that things have ended and calmed down, according to BBC News things haven’t ended completely.

The article I recently read states that “… there are still deep social problems that we’ve got to address by looking at what happens in the lives of young people, their role models, their ideals, what they want to achieve” according toLondon Mayor Boris Johnson. The articles says that the Mayor does believe that the London Olympics did play a positive role in reaching out to people because the famous game “builds self-esteem, character, confidence and the ability to understand how to lose - all those vital things.”

The article also says how Mayor Johnson “stressed the importance of getting young people into work”, while “Jason Featherstone, director of Surviving Our Streets, a charity which works with young people, told BBC Radio 5 live that he believed things were ‘still as raw as a year ago’ and there could be a repeat of last year’s riots.” The article ends with Featherstone saying, “I believe we are teetering on more unrest - another incident like this might happen again.” 

… Wow.

With all this being said, with the London Olympics just closing their gates less than a month ago, with the young people of London being watched so carefully, with this feeling of pride that the Olympics left but also with that lingering feeling of unrest in the back of peoples mind’s… How does this affect people’s HOPE? 

How does the older generation who by default just never understands the youngest generation define their HOPE? 

How do these “young people”, as the article labels them, see HOPE… and if we are going along with the tone of the article, do they even understand or know what HOPE is?

I was talking with a friend recently who is from London and he told me, “Oh don’t go to London- you aren’t going to find any hope there.”

Well… I that’s exactly what I’m trying to do; find HOPE where people think there isn’t any left.

Question: What does HOPE mean to you?

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Thank you!

Sources:

BBC News

“Riot problems still an issue, Mayor Boris Johnson says”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19144888 

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