The Purple Bus is a youth club on wheels. It drives around Hackney to different estates five days a week bringing I.T. facilities and cycle repairs to Hackney’s youth. They focus on an age group of 11-19 year olds and give them the opportunity to explore the ‘net for free.
They also run regular I.T. courses such as Learning to Type, Hero Machine, BBC Web Wise, Football Basic Training and Learn I.T. Skills. The bus also has a whiteboard which is used to play films and as a teaching aid to demonstrate I.T. skills. The bus is provided by Hackney Youth Service.
We went to the Kingshold Estate on a Friday evening, and we spoke to four boys, three of them 11, and John, 14. The three younger boys explained that they visited the bus once a week and enjoyed playing games and listening to music. John told us "I attend the bus regularly because it helps to keep me off the streets, and it’s fun…all my friends use it."
Keir Apperly is an Outreach Youth Worker for Hackney Youth Service and also works on the bus. We interviewed him, and he explained that there is a high demand for the bus, "A lot of people want the bus – a lot of organisations or estates or TRAs – Tenants and Residents Associations." To meet this demand, the bus doesn’t remain with the same estates for too long: "We are by definition a mobile unit, so we can pick up and go as and when it’s a good time. But we stay for long enough, until there’s a reason [to go]."
Keir explained that the bus tries to link up with other youth facilities: "The idea is to come to a place which doesn’t have much in the way of youth provision, and then get something going. Like if there’s a community centre that’s not getting used, encourage that to start getting used so that when we leave we’re leaving behind something that they can carry on after we’ve gone."
When asked, all the young people we spoke to mentioned that most of their friends went there so they enjoyed meeting up with them. Keir, who actually drives the bus, backed this up by saying: "I liken it to driving an ice-cream van sometimes – you see them running along as you’re arriving."
About this article
This story was written by Sarra Said-Wardell,12, Mary McCarthy, 18, and Ziyad Said-Wardell, nine, and published in Hackney Today (pdf).
