The brotherhood of Burngreave

Recalling the time then Lord Mayor of Sheffield Magid Magid held a party for the boys of Big Brother Burngreave in the town hall, the group’s founder Safiya Saeed described their response.

“They sat in rooms that they would never, ever sit in. For black kids to sit around a 200-year-old table, it was absolutely mind-blowing for them. They just felt a part of British culture belonged to them. None of them knew what this building was about, let alone going in and partying and looking at the architecture, looking at the statues and the stairs. We just felt really royal that day,” said the youth worker and mum-of-five.

Safiya with ex-Mayor of Sheffield Magid Magid

Safiya with ex-Mayor of Sheffield Magid Magid

Inspired by Magid who told her passion and feeling were as crucial to the role as understanding politics, Safiya is running as the Labour Party candidate for Burngreave in the upcoming local elections.

Believing change is needed on systemic and community levels, Safiya hopes to provide more supportive, life-changing projects such as Big Brother for people growing up in the area.

Grounded in a sense of family, trust and respect, this successful group engages 11 to 21-year-old boys with each other through weekly sports activities to build relationships, confidence and a space to socialise other than the streets. It is a “brotherhood bond” says 21-year-old Tes Awoke, who has been a part of Big Brother since its 2017 inception.

Using a peer support and mentoring system where older boys guide and teach the younger members, the Reach Up Youth run programme integrates activities aiding mental wellbeing, education, employment and more. Amid the pandemic, the group have moved online, randomly allocating the boys to a youth leader for two phone calls and an online session weekly.

Determined to continue providing support to their members despite the national turbulence, Big Brother are an inspiring, positive project yet one which has had to bear the burden of criminal stereotyping.

“There are certain places that people pull away when they see us walking and that’s me who looks like a humpty-tumpty with a hijab on. What do you think I’m gonna do to you? Can you imagine what it’s like for young boys on their own? I don’t like to let them see that ugliness,” said Safiya.

Stigmatised by the area’s criminal reputation and hampered by systemic inequalities, the young people growing up in Burngreave do not have it easy. They are victim to what University of Sheffield lecturer and sociologist Dr Will Mason recalled as the disadvantage paradox, an overrepresentation of offenders from areas of deprivation leading to a criminal label placed upon people living there.

“What happens then is that all of the young people from that space are inscribed with those kinds of associations and that can be incredibly damaging for a young person because they carry that with them in all of the different spaces that they interact and engage with,” said the lecturer in Applied Social Sciences.

Such misrepresentations can have psycho-social implications on how young people feel about themselves and the kinds of relationships they have with others too, Dr Mason added.

“If you’re from Burngreave, everybody sees you as a gangster or as someone involved in anti-social behaviour. That is all they see. They never see that there are good kids in Burngreave. What we have been trying to do is show people the young people in Burngreave who are good as well,” said Tes.

Joining the group as one of three friends who were asked by Safiya to be the group’s first volunteer leaders, Tes credits his three-year experience of living in a Kenyan refugee camp for enabling him to appreciate the value of connecting with others.

“You know when you’re in a place of struggle and you meet somebody and the people there are struggling like you, but they’re trying to help, and you’re trying to help but you yourself are struggling, you’re building a bond where even if you’re blood or not, it doesn’t matter, you are like a family. It made me realise the importance of people, not just family and blood, but people.”

The first three of Big Brother's volunteer leaders from left to right: Abdul-Malik, Sahal and Tes.

The first three of Big Brother's volunteer leaders from left to right: Abdul-Malik, Sahal and Tes.

Building upon such relationships, Big Brother does everything from workshops on knife crime and conversations about mental health to an afterschool course addressing drug selling in a local school.

“Drug dealers, what they do is they base their drug sellers inside the schools, so a 14-year-old will sell weed. What we did was to think, why can’t we insert Big Brother inside the schools?” said Safiya on the six week course run by two Big Brother members at Longley College, Sheffield.

Outside of the more serious work they do, the project has also provided the boys with opportunities to go canoeing, abseiling and climbing.

Safiya’s 15-year-old son Sami revealed how much being involved in the group has boosted his self-confidence. “It made me way more mature, I think before I was trying to impress everyone you know. I feel like I don’t need to have everyone’s approval of what I do, it made me feel okay to be different,” he said.

With approximately one hundred participants, the group hopes to keep growing and have recently received £11,730 of funding from South Yorkshire Violence Reduction Unit to buy differently coloured t-shirts showing a young person’s level of achievement in the project.

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A force spokesperson from South Yorkshire Police stated: “In September 2019 we launched our Violence Reduction Unit and set up our county-wide Serious Violent Crime Task Force, which continue to make progress. A vital part of the work they undertake is to provide educational opportunities for those in our communities who may be susceptible to becoming involved in this type of criminality."

“Everyone has a role to play in this, from our schools and youth groups through to our health professionals and the wider criminal justice services.”

With the gradual retreat of lockdown restrictions though and Big Brother still operating online for now, Safiya said they just can’t wait for the trips, BBQ’s and parties of Summer to return.