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We have been working with youth in the town centre for around 5 or 6 years now. Beginning from Prayer-walking in the town centre on a Saturday after noon Malc and a team began to find that they would regularly end up in the Forbury Gardens which led to them talking to the young people there.
Our involvement with youth now expresses itself most obviously in Fostering and detached youth work as you will see below.
Until November 2004 we were both on the management team of the Boiler Room.
On Saturdays we were seeing anything up to 150 "Forburyites" and 20 - 30 skaters in the Forbury. With the closure of the Gardens for renovation they are now dispersed over a wide area. Most make their way to King's Meadow but wander into town to the station, down by the Kennet etc.
It has been tragic to see a gradual increase in, regression to, the use of drugs and interest in the occult since the Boiler Room closed.
We are committed to fighting the spirit of self-harm and suicide that many are prone to, summed up in Kurt Cobain's famous words printed on the back of one young person's hoodie
We are still sincerely committed to seeing the Church in Reading reaching out and transforming the town.
We need real wisdom to know the way ahead.