Banner produced by the Barton Hill Young Somali Women's Group, 2004

The Bristol Gang Awareness Project (GAP) addresses issues of youth and conflict in central Bristol and beyond. The project aims to raise awareness among young people of conflict dynamics, including the costs and gains of youth gang membership, and to give them some alternative strategies to deal with conflict and peer pressure where they encounter it - at home, on the street, in school.

The project itself is run by both an adult steering group and a
young people’s steering group with an active ongoing membership of
young men and women from the different areas of central Bristol. This group have recently named themselves TFA (Thoughts, Feelings and Actions).

Over the last two years the project has run:

• youth conferences presented by young people for young people
• a youth forum theatre group, which has devised and presented its own interactive theatre pieces
• workshops and discussion groups in schools, youth clubs and prisons
• outreach work with young people on the street

Jayson, project worker, with members of TFA (Thoughts, Feelings, Actions)