Jonathan Bellamy caught up with XLP

In a unique partnership, (to be broadcast on MTV One on Sunday November 30th), MTV UK, EMI Music and The Metropolitan Police Service, have joined forces to transform a former police riot vehicle into a mobile youth resource. And this is all for the organisation XLP. As well as providing a neutral environment where young people can meet, the van will also offer a broad range of services and information that young people will be able to use around music. For example the van features recording technology which will offer young people the opportunity to learn the basic skills required for music production. Jonathan Bellamy spoke with Patrick Regan, CEO of XLP to find out more about this exciting initiative.

Jonathan: This sounds like a fantastic project that MTV have got involved with you guys. How did it come about?

Patrick: Well basically I've got a friend who's a Superintendent and we run a sumo project using a bus. We realise that London is very territorial these days with young people. There's a whole postcode war going on. So young people don't tend to go from one estate to another. So getting a big youth centre somewhere and trying to get everyone there just isn't going to work. So we need to go to where they're at. So we came up with this idea that if we approached MTV with the idea - would they be interested in taking a police riot van, and turning it into something that would be like a mobile youth centre, into a mobile studio that we could take and work with young people. Particularly who're on the verge of being excluded from school; kids from school who don't have access to this technology and to get along side of them. I didn't think they'd go for it, but they did.

Jonathan: And MTV - Its their show 'Pimp My Ride' that's picked it up isn't it?

Patrick: Yes that's right. It's called 'Pimp My Police Riot Van' and it's on this Sunday at seven o'clock on MTV One.

Jonathan: How did they respond then? I mean you said you didn't think they would pick it up but they did. What was their motivation in wanting to do it?

Patrick: I think they saw the increase in the whole gun and knife violence that's going on in the Capital city and their corporate responsibility department wanted to make some response. But they also realise that the issues aren't just about, you know, get rid of knives and get rid of guns. Obviously that's going to help. But there's wider issues around educational failure; there's wider issues around working with families. There's wider issues around getting access to equipment. Sometimes if I'm on a call on an estate you can't get access to that equipment. So I was really encouraged that they were looking at a holistic picture, the bigger picture and wanted to do something that wasn't just a two or three week campaign or advertising campaign, but wanted to do something that was sustainable that was going to sort of last for years and years and years and leave a real legacy.

Jonathan: Now in the normal kinda 'Pimp My Ride' programmes, you see cars getting jazzed-up, huge wheels, interior design, all that kind of stuff. What have they done to this former police riot van?

Patrick: Well basically it's a mobile recording studio; so they've turned the interior into a - it's got a sound booth, it's got a mixing desk, it's got a guitar and we're going to do three things with it. Number one is that we're going to help young people with training so we'll be training young people to use the equipment, which will hopefully open up job opportunities and stuff like that. We'll also be doing podcasting so we've got a video camera on the van as well. What we're trying to do is to get young people to come on and articulate for us what is going on in their community. To be a champion for their community if you like. And then we're going to be putting it out on the web. And thirdly, to help young people record material which again reflects their lives. So it isn't like X-Factor, sing a song and get famous, and sing a couple of songs that you haven't written. This is very much a mentoring process.

Jonathan: Sounds fantastic. Now the Metropolitan Police have given you this vehicle. Will they stay involved with you in some way? Are they going to look at some of the videos and podcasts that are produced or what?

Patrick: Yes absolutely. We work very much relationally and we're in relationship with local police and all the different boroughs in London that we work in. So this is just one initiative along with a whole load of initiatives that XLP are running around crime prevention. And so part of that is making sure that there's some joined-up thinking around some of the issues concerning young people. And so definitely we're in for the long haul. And we're in to make sure that we join together in trying to see real breakthrough in this whole area of gun violence.

Jonathan: Now what's great is as well as MTV involved, you've also got Radio 1 DJ Tim Westwood involved in the programme I believe haven't you?

Patrick: Yeh. That's right.

Jonathan: And XLP - I mean in terms of connecting with those kind of figures from a youth culture point of view: you know that's really credible and relevant in that sense. Tell us a little bit about XLP in terms of your heart motive and what you do on a general day to day.

Patrick: Basically, XLP started twelve years ago. I was a local youth worker in the church and there was a stabbing in the school down the road from where we were. And the school phoned the church and said is there anything we could do to help. And the vicar at the time thought, I don't fancy this very much and he sent me as a local youth worker to see what I could do. And one of the things I realised is that if young people need anything it's they need consistency in their life. And they need people to address the issues that they're facing. So we started this sort of 'ad-hoc' lunch club. And we were amazed to see 120 kids come into it every single Monday lunchtime. And then we said to the school; you know as local church we believe in serving our local community; so what can we do to serve, what can we do to help. The school said, well we have 65 mother tongue languages in our school. So it's not that the kids are thick or stupid. They've arrived from overseas; they don't know what's going on. So we started helping with reading. We started doing lessons around specialist subjects like sexual health, and obviously anger management, and conflict resolution. And we started running clubs. And eventually other schools heard about what was going on in this one school and started saying you know what's going on in that school down the road; could you come and help us as well. And at that point we decided to start a charity. And we wanted it to be something that communicated and demonstrated the love of God. And to see places that were often perceived as places of trouble to become places of hope. And so now we're working in seven of London's boroughs. We're working in about fifty secondary schools. We're running fifty clubs a month doing reading. We've got a project called Guns Down which we run with a hip hop group called Green Jade, and we have life coaching projects, and projects that help young people in their creative aspects of their lives; like music, dance, drama; and mentoring projects. But the vision's the same. We want to see transformation. We want to see young people who've been slagged off and put down, to see their self worth their self-esteem raised. And we want to see them actually functioning in their own family making wise life style choices. So we're really passionate about what we do.