26 : THE ROOTSCAPE PROJECT: LEYS REMIX
The Rootscape Project: Leys Remix

This project will develop the capacity of children and young people from within Oxford’s Blackbird Leys area, to articulate their everyday experience of living on a large peripheral mixed tenure housing estate. The aim is to enable them to develop employment skills, with particular reference to providing a consultancy service to promote child/youth-friendly urban design and to enhance their capacity to engage in further and higher education.

The challenges involve overcoming two key barriers:

• Low expectations on the part of children and young people themselves about what good places might be like
• Adults’ low expectations of children and young people’s capabilities, particularly in relation to professional work.

Initially the project will develop the employment potential of 24 young people. In the longer term, the project has been designed, with the inclusion of an end-user Advisory Panel, to ensure it is self-sustaining with approximately the same number of participants each year.

The project will continue with inputs from OBU students across a range of disciplines, through a process of community service learning in which Brookes’ students contribute to the project and in turn, gain live educational opportunities to improve their own learning.