May 2015

EUGangs Project representatives travel to Italy for transnational meeting

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University College Birmingham lecturers travelled to Italy to represent the University at the EUGangs Project’s fourth transnational meeting.

Craig Pinkney and Sangeeta Soni flew to the city of Modena to speak with project partners. The meeting was hosted by Italian partners C’eis Formazione (CEIS) and also included project representatives from each of the other three partner countries – Cyprus, Romania and Greece.

The group met to discuss the positive progress of the EUGangs Project following the last meeting in Athens, Greece back in December 2014. Over the last 12 months, the project has gone from strength to strength in its efforts to train experts across Europe on understanding gangs, youth violence and how to engage with community issues so they can train others back in their home countries. So far, 100 people have been professionally trained.

It is truly amazing to see how the programme has grown and it was great to hear feedback on the growing number of people who have started their training in our four partner countries. In Italy we met some of the lecturers who teach on the programme and we also got to meet some of the students. We had the opportunity to visit a residential care home that houses young men seeking asylum from countries such as Gambia, Morocco, Bangladesh, Syria and Algeria. We also met some young people from the local youth centre, and they put on a performance for us by singing, dancing and beatboxing.

Craig Pinkney, UCB lecturer

UCB’s Community Safety (Working with Gangs) course is a product of the EUGangs project and provides a vocational and professional qualification for those working in gang and youth crime environments not only in the UK, but across Europe.