Estate (for the elephant)

Walking around the Heygate Estate for the first time was quite an experience. I found its size intimidating and the emptiness quite eerie. For those that are, or have lived there this may sound a little stupid and possibly ignorant but I’d never been anywhere like it before. When you’re confronted with these huge concrete towers its hard to imagine that there’s life going on inside them. This however is what attracts me. To try and find out what’s actually going on inside is quite exciting and incredibly interesting. The lecturer today (I think Tom Hunter) talked about an estate in Hackney he worked on, where he was amazed by the contrast of the debris and piss covered exterior and the warmth of the interior (not that The Heygate is in such a poor state).

Our brief however is about ‘work’ so how do I explore what are essentially residential areas with this outline. I first thought about black-market or at least unconventional ways of making money. Talking about this with an organisation that works on the estate, they said fair enough but you should consider the reasons behind this. Within these areas the employment status of the people can be quite negative. This could be under-employment, low-wage employment, unemployment, blackmarket work and so on. Every individual may have a different set of circumstances that have influenced their working life, the same as different communities within these estates may have different issues contributing to possible problems . A lone parent family may face different challenges to a family that has to navigate language barriers. And then in turn what effect do these problems people face with work have on the people around them – such as kids.

The social problems people may face on estates such as these will directly affect their working lives which in turn affects their futures and family’s future. These areas do suffer from above average unemployment and low-wage employment among other things. For me its very interesting to consider what the issues behind this are, and after today’s talk, if blaming the architecture and knocking these buildings down will actually improve any of this for the individuals involved.

(For Paul – I’ll stick all my posts for Elephant in an Elephant category so you can miss all the other rants)

The Club

After 4 false dawns over the holiday I finally got a project together. My 5th choice. Getting into the Easter spirit and needing a bit of divine help I threw my lot in with the almighty. I spent half the time with a local Catholic priest and half with an Anglican. Coming from a completely non-religious background, it was wonderful and extremely interesting to see that after their ceremonial duties were over, these guys were as normal as anyone else (at least in the Monty Pythonesque vain of Britishness). A dinnertime chat with Chinese takeaway, wine and cornettos could bounce between deep theological debates, to discussions on the best way to kick a conman out of your house, to Chelsea or Man U’s fate this season. The most intriguing point for me was this contrast between their deep religious beliefs and duties to – what I see as – the normality of their private lives. Of course to them this is just all part of their working lives – and how else would you expect them to be?!

The Eurcarist

Healing Prayer

Bible Study

Home visit

PowerPoint

Sunday Service

Wedding Arrangements

The Priesthood

Eastern

Just a quick post to show I’m still alive. Its being a funny holiday with lots of frustration along the way. Its starting to get there though and the Catholic Priesthood turned out to be a lot more amusing than I ever anticipated – more on that later.