​A few months ago, I decided to start a crime and punishment workshop. I chose the theme crime and punishment because it is an ongoing issue, which is affects many people around the world. Therefore, I chose to do a crime workshop (to run during 2018 Summer Holidays) so that other young people could be informed about the issues in our local and global communities. 
 
In week one, I was lucky enough to have quite a few people attend my workshop, as well as some individuals from the Hounslow Youth Council. Everyone was split into groups, which they worked with throughout the session and developed presentations on a chosen crime. I started off with activities that would get everyone thinking, such as: asking everyone to share their opinions on crime and asking what they think a crime is. I explained the classifications of crime followed by a group discussion on what we could do to tackle crime as well as a role play activity.
​Overall this session made me feel more confident and positive about the following weeks and assured me that I could do this!

​After having asked everyone in my last session what they wanted to learn about, I chose the topic sexual harassment as it is an ongoing issue, which affects many people worldwide. I started by explaining what sexual harassment is and also played a video, which provided additional information. Not many people knew the statistics of sexual harassment around the world, so I made up a guessing game where the class guessed statistics on sexual harassment. The young people were extremely surprised and shocked by the statistics. 

​Did you know that 120 million girls have experienced forced sex or other sexual acts? I shared stories about different cases of harassment and asked for their opinions on the scenarios and questioned what they would have done in that case. Since many people do not feel very comfortable talking about a sensitive topic like this, I was not sure what feedback I was going to get. However, everyone was extremely mature and expressed their opinions in a very respectful manor. 

​I spoke about the history of crime from the Middle Ages to the 20th Century. They were informed about many of the different crimes committed in different era’s and punishments. In addition, I also presented how the punishment system has changed over the years. The session ended with a debate on an ongoing issue: Capital Punishment. This debate challenged the participants as they debated on whether capital punishment should be re- introduced in the UK.
 
The last week, was dedicated to fun (using drama and role play activities) to help young people further understand current court and law system in the UK. My first activity was as court game, the whole room was transformed into a court and everyone played different roles, such as the judge, witness, the jury etc.
I gave the class different scenarios, which challenged them and made them think. Another game played was murder mystery: every person was given a new identity, furthermore around the room were hidden alphabet rhymes, which had to be solved. Everyone had an opportunity to play Sherlock Holmes.
​In the end, the letters equalled the name of the murderer. I had previously planned this with one of the participants and asked them to hide, so that when everyone had found out who the murderer was, they would try to find them. This was an extremely fun and educational session!

Overall, as well as being a lot of fun, I highly believe that these sessions have made me more confident and responsible. In addition, I developed my life, leadership and communication skills on how to handle people of different ages, views and opinions. I would like to thank everyone who attended my sessions as well as Taz who gave me this opportunity and believed that I could do this!

By Lerin Bajaj, 14 yrs. ​

It’s Autumn! Time to get out and about, meet new people, learn something interesting, get involved and have lots of fun.

We have a wide range of activities for everyone to enjoy from: Family Walking Football, Youth Filmmaking, Youth Debates, Healthy Cooking, Yoga and Art Social Club to name a few. 
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If that’s not enough, we also have exciting community events that bring everyone together, including The Big Draw on Saturday 3rd November 2018. 
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​Click here to download our Autumn & Winter Activities Guide today and get involved.

In partnership with Sunshine of Hounslow, we held our Big Local Community Consultation on Saturday 8th September 2018 at Cranford Community College.
​We would like to thank our partners Bounce Theatre, Bantu Arts, Certitude, Mayor of London, Groundwork London, Heston Action Group (HAGS), Berkeley Academy and London Borough of Hounslow.

Massive thanks to all our wonderful Heston West Big Local volunteers on the day for their amazing support bringing it all together and all our community member who attended, thank you.
The consultation purpose was to find out what the community thought of our legacy ideas and what additional ideas they had to help us finalise our Legacy report by the end of this year. 

Around 40 volunteers from the Heston West community joined us for our Summer Clean Up Day in partnership with our Bounce Theatre Summer School project and Hounslow Highways. We cleaned up the Redwood and Brabazon Estate. It was great to see so many people - of all ages - get involved and make an inspiring difference to our community.

The Community Summer Clean Up Day was filmed by our MADE in HESTON WEST youth group on Wednesday 22nd August 2018. Big thanks to all our amazing volunteers, Bounce Theatre, MADE and Hounslow Highways for providing the equipment.

​Welcome to our new series focusing on local talent and residents getting involved with the Heston West Big Local.

Our first episode focuses on Big Local Youth Action Volunteer and Film Club member Brooke Jones. This film was created by young people involved with the Big Local Youth Action Team and MADE in HESTON WEST participants in partnership with Make A Difference Entertainment. 

​Young people from Heston West Big Local and Hounslow Youth Council attended a Political Summer School. The event was hosted by Seema Malhotra MP, Heston West Big Local and Hounslow Youth Council and kindly supported by New Bharat and Universal Fortune Limited.

The project aimed to introduce young people to local and national politics. On the 26th July 2018, participants learnt about the wards and constituencies in Hounslow. This was followed with a Q&A session with 3 councillors; Councillor Shantanu Rajawat, Counillor Rajinder Bath and Councillor Tom Bruce. We learnt about the issues they deal with, their views on Brexit and the their roles as councillors. The participants were split into groups of 6 and each group formed their own political party and started creating their manifestos. Each group researched their potential policy topics and then ended the day with a delicious lunch!

​The next day, the participants met early to catch a coach to Parliament. Once they arrived, we headed up to the Grand Committee Room in Westminster Hall. The group continued to work on their manifestos before presenting. The groups had to choose 6 topics they wanted to focus on in their manifestos. The six parties are: Speak Out, Social Liberalist Party, The Crossroads Democratic Party, The Peoples Party, The International Centralist Party and Equitas (Latin for equality). After presenting, the groups learnt about parliamentary style debating and how laws are made.

After an intense debate, everyone headed downstairs for lunch. The chocolate chips cookies proved a popular choice amongst participants!

Once everyone had eaten, we headed back upstairs for a Q&A with the Member of Parliament for Feltham and Heston, Seema Malhotra. Participants found out more about Seema's views on Brexit, the busy life of an MP and how they can get their MP to represent their voice in Parliament. As the day came to an end, a Political Summer School General Election was held. Congratulations to Equitas, who won with a majority vote. Information on each group’s manifestos can be found below*

All participants were presented with a certificate, to honor their completion of the Political Summer School. All participants agreed that their knowledge of local and national politics had improved. I hope the participants use the Political Summer School to ensure their voice is heard locally and nationally!

Special thanks to New Bharat for allowing the attendees to travel to parliament via coach and to Universal Fortune Limited for making this project possible.

​Amadeus was first involved with our Saturday Multi-Sports sessions as a participant but has since progressed and has been supporting our MADE in HESTON WEST film club and has become an integral figure for our Big Local Youth Action Team. Amadeus is a multi-talented and extremely motivated young person – he can solve the Rubik's Cube in just under 2 minutes and has performed at the Royal Opera House!  There is no stopping him, we are immensely proud to have him involved with the Heston West Big Local. Read his story below.