The Ubuntu Round Tables Project - helping young people manage conflict with the police

The Ubuntu Round Tables Project brings disenfranchised young people and their local police officers together to build respect and understanding and so reduce Police-Youth antagonism and build the trust that underpins safety on our streets.

The project has been created through a powerful partnership between Youth Futures and the Tutu Foundation UK, and is born out of one young man’s vision for change following a disrespectful and upsetting stop and search. The project creates a framework that enables local young people to invite their local Police Officers to engage with them in a discussion facilitated by other young people. The topics are chosen by the participants during a preparation process ensuring that they are locally relevant.

“I want to give both young people and representatives from State institutions the opportunity to be heard without feeling as if they are being backed into a corner” - Mark, Youth Futures Young Leader

The Ubuntu Round Tables Project evolved from 'Conversations for Change', which was introduced as the Tutu Foundation UK's community peace-building programme. The aim of Conversations for Change is to bring together people who are in the same geographic community but not the same social community to help them understand community tension and conflict and then begin a process of making changes in themselves and their communities.

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Currently, an essential element of the Ubuntu Round Tables project is that it is Youth-Led. The project management framework provided by the Tutu Foundation – Youth Futures Partnership is designed to enable and empower young people to take control and to organise. The project creates opportunities for young people who have a mistrust of police officers to gain training and then work as facilitators mediating between groups of local young people and local police officers.

Through this project the young people who are leading and facilitating it have worked with over a hundred police officers, over 200 young people and presented their work at a Parliamentary symposium alongside David Lammy MP, demonstrating the importance of community policing and the importance of nurturing relationships and common ground between police and those that are being policed.

if you'd like to find out more about the project, please visit: https://tutufoundationuk.org/ubunto-round-tables-project/