Homeward bound....

WOW!! What a journey the last 6 weeks have been not to mention all the time leading up to this with all the planning and preparation that had to take place. I have thoroughly enjoyed every minute of my travels and am so grateful to the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust for allowing me to fulfil my dream of taking on this research. I have had some ups and down along the way but the majority of time was plane sailing! I managed to achieve most of the goals that I set out to accomplish and visited such a variety of different organisations and facilities to get a wide range of different perspectives on the magnitude of the gang problems in the states that I visited. Everyone I spoke to was so willing to help and show me their organisation and in many cases had contacts with others that I attempted to visit but unfortunately I did not have time to see them all.

It amazed me to see that in many areas that I visited the gang problems were generational and many of the young people’s mothers, fathers and in some cases grandparents were gang members. These young people are often the hardest to reach as it is so much a way of life for the whole family and there is no positive role model in their life to show them a different path that does not involve violence, drugs and guns. This is where many of the agencies I visited stepped in to be that positive influence to help to guide and support the young person and show them that they have the potential to achieve whatever they want to if they put their mind to it.

All the states that I visited had different gangs that were the most active in their area for example in New York it was both Black and Mexican gangs, Miami were mainly Haitian and Mexican and in LA it was mainly Black gangs. However more or less everyone who I have met has said the same thing about why these young people get involved in gangs in the first place: it starts in the home!! Your surroundings, the way you are bought up and education play a major role in shaping your future. Many of these young people have been bought up in violent, abuse homes with absent parents who are working too hard to notice what their child is doing, is involved themselves or on drugs then they are unable to provide the child with the right guidance and discipline as they get older and the child then looks for another role model and finds it in a gang and so the cycle begins...more needs to be done to educate this parents into the signs to watch out for in the child so that they can spot if the child is involved in gang activity as it is surprising how many parents have no idea! They also need to be guiding in how to spent quality constructive time with their children as many of the gang members who I have spoken to whose parents are involved in this world said that the only time that that parent had to spend with their child was when they were out on the streets so they in turn became and gang member in order to get closer and feel that love from their parents.

It has been a fascinating journey but one that I have learnt much from not just about gangs, how they operate and why the young people join in the first place but about myself. This for me has also been a journey of self discovery and I feel that I have learnt much about myself along the way such as being comfortable to talk and hold my own in a crowd of people I have never met before, feeling confident in meeting and speaking with gang members and professions and often talking about quite sensitive issues. My confidence has grown so much over the last few weeks. I have also learnt that I can actually read a map and navigate myself from place to place; I don’t know what I would have done without Google map!!! I will be very sad to say goodbye to America but have the feeling it won’t be long before I return again....

Thank you so much to everyone who has supported me through my journey I really appreciate all of your love and support and I will continue to blog when I get home to keep up to date with my progress.