Letter to the Prime Minister offering help in the wake of the recent riots

By Terry_Ryall 12th August 11

Rt Hon David Cameron MP

10 Downing Street

London SW1A 2AA

12^th August 2011

Dear Prime Minister

We are a group of leaders of national volunteering organisations who got together in the wake of the riots and public disorder in London and other cities. We want to extend our help to you over the coming weeks as the Government examines the causes of these disturbances and seeks ways to tackle them.

We know there will be many others with experience to offer. Our combined experience of working with young people and communities can feed in to the understanding of what may have caused these young people to take such extreme action and, crucially, what needs to be done to prevent it happening again.

We have experience of working on programmes with Government both at national and local level that have been proven to deliver effective solutions. We would like to work with you, your Ministers and officials to be part of the healing process, ensuring that young people can play their part in building stronger communities and helping the economic recovery.

The vast majority of young people, of course, were not involved and we have been seeking ways through social and other media to accentuate the good work that young people do on a daily basis in their communities, as well as in the clean-up. We are determined not to allow the disturbances to overshadow the positive contribution that so many young people make to our society.

Our partnership is poised to work with local communities to deliver solutions to rebuild pride in the places in which people live and work. We have a track record in providing robust evidence about the outcomes we achieve.

Through our existing activities we will in any case be working to identify and provide solutions to prevent a reoccurrence of the events of recent days. We are ready to work with you and your Government as you turn your attention to policies and practices to address as you said the pockets of society where these problems arose.

Yours sincerely