Three continents

North Woolwich East London, March 2012

The east London Docklands, a former industrial area that once serviced the British mercantile empire helping bring into being the modern trading world, seems to stretch endlessly on this grey day in March, a vast flatland now slowly being remade into condominium towers and office space. That transformation has gone far but is not complete—this is still one of the poorest areas of London if not Britain. Alighting at King George V station I am in the middle of a mid-60s public housing estate in North Woolwich, an area claimed to have some of the highest levels of violent crime in London.

At the end of a street of council flats across from a boarded-up pub is the London headquarters of the British charity Fight for Peace, an organisation that connects with the area’s troubled youth through boxing and martial arts, an approach it successfully applies at is satellite project in the slums of Rio de Janeiro. I am here to represent a Congolese boxing club for street boys and ex-child soldiers, applying a youth development tool that appeals to some of the toughest youngsters in this or any other country or continent.

The Fight for Peace office is next to a 19^th century school building which is for troubled children one step away from being institutionalised. Salty language is coming from the yard where a girl of 7 or 8 is standing alone. The yard is a fenced-in wire mesh area,  a holding pen where kids who misbehave are held, alone, and who, according to the project officer I’ve come to see, spend their time screaming, crying and kicking the doors. It is one of the bleakest scenes I’ve ever come across.

Inside the Fight for Peace offices are modest but functional, befitting what is the most successful charities of its kind and receives multi-million pound grants and support from public and private donors. There are class rooms, meeting rooms, and offices full of 20 and 30 something project officers. Next door is the gym, a cavernous room with a boxing ring in the centre and inspiring slogans on the walls. A group of young men are working out, mostly, but not entirely, black, all of them very large and muscled. The atmosphere is disciplined and positive—young men who are troubled or potentially troubled are finding a proper outlet. I would say the same about my boys in eastern Congo, ex-child soldiers who would give anything to have the problems of the people here.