How can landlords engage young residents and give them a voice?
Amal, 20, is part of the Youth Independent Advisory Group at Poplar Harca  Poplar Harca is a housing association and regeneration community association in east London that manages 9,000 homes. Each year, the organisation invests around 4m in community regeneration. This includes Spotlight  a creative youth service designed to inspire  as well as initiatives to improve health and well-being, events, networking, and the provision of affordable workspace. Spotlight is a safe space for younger residents to be part of their community. Last year, 4,000 young people aged between 11 and 19, or up to 25 years if the person has a special need or disability, got involved in positive activity programmes intended to boost empowerment and to give young residents a voice. Amal, 20, is part of the Youth Independent Advisory Group, working with Tower Hamlets police, which meets every month to help them understand how to deal with community safety issues. As a result of this engagement she is also part of a scrutiny group for the Mayors Young Londoners Fund programmes. I have lived in Tower Hamlets with my family for nearly 10 years. One of my favourite things about my area is the diversity  a real mix of people from everywhere and you never see the same group of people around every day. It seems like everyones a stranger  until you get to meet them and then you realise youre connected to them. I got involved with the group two years ago. Its not just about the community youre in but also learning more about the culture and religion youre from. I have Somali heritage and I am a Muslim. I want more of my friends to get involved [because] being included in my community makes me feel safer. I love the sessions that Spotlight do with the police. We learn about the police, what they do and how they approach certain situations to make the area safe. In turn, we help them learn how to interact with young people and how they can feel safer when the police are dealing with them. I really want to see change in how the police deals with people in my area. I feel more engaged with issues now and more confident to speak up  100%. I had no self confidence at all and now if theres something I want to say, Ill speak up and I wont hold anything back. Its improved my confidence. Now Im more aware of my area and I would like to get more involved on issues, and definitely on safety issues because its about where I live and everyone here.