Reclaim the Night - Wednesday 10th November 04 By Rich Mills

Embarrassed as I'm to say it, but you can hardly have failed to have seen my ugly mug staring back at you from the pages of the Hull Daily Mail recently. What has got them so excited that I will soon need to employ a Press Officer? Well, the simple idea of Reclaim the Night. Suggested by residents in the Scullybank Project area who had participated in such events back in the 70's, when Reclaim the Night was predominately about violence against women and children.

While thinking about this we came to the conclusion that the majority of people today have issues and concerns about being out after dark. In fact, probably the only sector of the community that is least afraid is 20-30 something men, and they are statistically the most likely to be attacked!

So along with local residents, we revamped the concept of Reclaim the Night for the fear filled 21st Century. We live in times when the media are constantly telling us about the threat of crime on our streets, terrorist attacks, super-bug viruses, I'm mean if you took any notice of the media you'd never leave your home.

The thing is all this is simply little more than exaggerated sensationalism. The world is not the scary place the media would have us believe, if you looked at crime figures this country is in many ways a much safer place to live than it has ever been.

Reclaim the Night the event happened on Wednesday 10th November. Around 50 people met-up outside Britannia House on what was a cold and rainy evening. With 8 local residents who'd kindly volunteered to marshal the event (all wearing INSECURITY T-shirts), we set-off at 7.00pm and headed down Spring Bank. The march ended in Pearson Park at the Pavilion, where we hand out hot (organic) soup and refreshments to everyone who made the effort to come along. The whole thing even made Yorkshire TV!

The up-shot of having such an event was to give people a voice, a chance to air their concerns or to assert themselves as having no fear of being out after dark. We'd arranged Walking Buses to help people get back home safely, but no-one took up the offer. They all felt perfectly safe to be out and about, which was a good sign. Myth busting was part of the idea, encouraging people to switch-off the TV, come out from behind their locked doors and out onto the streets.

I hope very much that there will be a group formed from some of the participants of the event, who attended the meetings, helped make the soup and design a banner, helped marshal and clear-up after everyone. There have been a number of genuine issues raised, and we have the opportunity to tackle them in innovative ways, in the hope that other areas will follow our lead and be proactive in showing their community to be a safe place to be after dark.

If you want further information or be involved in future projects and events, then please contact me. Rich Mills Hull DOC Wyke Economic Centre 460 Beverley Road HULL HU5 1NP (01482) 331422 richard.bg@ourcomms.org

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