They took us on a tour of the low-income neighbourhoods in South Bradford where most of our students will be coming from. Incredible. You would never be able to tell that the rows of Victorian Terraced homes were social housing. The streets were neat and clean, the occasional kids running through the streets in the rain, seniors walking dogs. Home to a working class community, most of the residents are South Asian or Eastern European immigrants and refugees. Historically they came to work in the mills when Bradford was a huge cotton producer.
East Bowling
We saw horses just standing in the parks, grazing. They are used to pull carts as residents scrounge for scrap metal. We saw a young Caucasian man trying to balance a large pile of scrap metal in the back of a trailer an older man was driving. Some kids will drop out of school because they think they will be able to make more money collecting scrap metal. I saw the metal collection building, with an ad encouraging cash back for scrap returns.
West Bowling
As we entered this community from the main road, I saw a Hallmark factory. Our guide (and bus driver) grew up here, and although he builds relationships with students across south Bradford, he says this is his home community and he has a passion for the youth here. I asked him about his "background" and instead of telling me what ethnicity he was (I think we eventually found out he was Afghan), he told me that he started out doing youth work with the churches in the community. I have no idea if he was paid but it seems that youth workers and community workers are not organised by any sort of centralised social service agency. Churches are the social service agencies. Now he is paid by the school to do youth work in the community, picking up at-risk kids to ensure they make it to school and having tea with parents to encourage them to have a better attitude towards education. He voluntarily organises trips and activities for the local kids.
Little Horton
Students living here go to Grange Technology College, my school. I think it was Little Horton that was home to a large population of South Asians (Pakistani, Bengali?) and also Eastern Europeans, many of them refugees. There's a little corner of the community called Little Czechoslovakia. This area started out entirely as farmland (but not good farmland) and was turned into social housing sometime during the war? After the war? I'll have to do a bit more research. There was a big problem with gangs before but now the problem is mostly drugs. This particular community is gorgeous with flowering trees, parkettes, and beautiful stone-faced houses. I read somewhere that there was a cotton weaving community in Little Horton in the 18th century, hence the three-story weaver cottages.
Looking down towards Little Horton. This is all social housing.
"Death Road", which ends at Challenge Academy. I didn't catch the story...
The tour ended at our guide's selection of the best curry in town! They were serving halal curry, samosas, naan, and rice but they came around and asked for vegetarian orders. I piped up (I think I was the only one) so I got a special bowl of marsala, two vegetarian samosas, and pakoras (deep-fried chickpeas and vegetables). Awesome!! My Pakistani housemate used to make pakoras and I think they are my favourite Middle Eastern/South Asian food thus far. Apparently Bradford is the Curry Capital of England, so if you come to visit me, we shall certainly go have some together!
The Sweet Centre Restaurant. The young man who was serving us told us he quit law school to take up the family business. His father was a chemist (had a drug store) who closed his shop (or was it left his business) to run the restaurant as well. The grandfather had started out with a sweet shop and eventually the business grew to being a restaurant with a banquet room upstairs for functions.
Sorry, I didn't take pictures inside, nor of the food... I mean, y'all know what curry looks like!
Final thought: My anxieties had been building up from being in a strange place with one of the highest crime rates in the country (apparently it's not high in violent crime, at least, not anymore). A forgotten post-industrial city where all the shops in the city centre close at 5pm. Even the bus driver had shaken his head and said to us heading there, "you don't want to go to Bradford!" It was this day, hearing the executive principal of Bradford Academy speak about his faith in us Canadian teachers to contribute to the improvement of education in Bradford, and seeing the context of the students, that suddenly I felt I had been guided to the right place at the right time. Maybe I'll figure out what Fredrick Buechner meant when he said, "Vocation is where our greatest passion meets the world’s greatest need."
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