Letter to the Prime Minister offering help in the wake of the recent riots
Friday, 12 August 2011
Rt Hon David Cameron MP
10 Downing Street
London SW1A 2AA
12th August 2011
Dear Prime Minister
We are a group of leaders of national volunteering organisations who got together in the wake of the riots and public disorder in London and other cities. We want to extend our help to you over the coming weeks as the Government examines the causes of these disturbances and seeks ways to tackle them.
We know there will be many others with experience to offer. Our combined experience of working with young people and communities can feed in to the understanding of what may have caused these young people to take such extreme action and, crucially, what needs to be done to prevent it happening again.
We have experience of working on programmes with Government both at national and local level that have been proven to deliver effective solutions. We would like to work with you, your Ministers and officials to be part of the healing process, ensuring that young people can play their part in building stronger communities and helping the economic recovery.
The vast majority of young people, of course, were not involved and we have been seeking ways through social and other media to accentuate the good work that young people do on a daily basis in their communities, as well as in the clean-up. We are determined not to allow the disturbances to overshadow the positive contribution that so many young people make to our society.
Our partnership is poised to work with local communities to deliver solutions to rebuild pride in the places in which people live and work. We have a track record in providing robust evidence about the outcomes we achieve.
Through our existing activities we will in any case be working to identify and provide solutions to prevent a reoccurrence of the events of recent days. We are ready to work with you and your Government as you turn your attention to policies and practices to address as you said the pockets of society where these problems arose.
Yours sincerely
Dr Justin Davis Smith CBE
Chief Executive, Volunteering England
Tom Flood
Chief Executive, BTCV
Lucy de Groot
Chief Executive, CSV
Terry Ryall
Chief Executive, v
