Jenny Cloete, community policing. Interviewed by Dori Thomas

Description

Jenny was a community Police officer was involved with Community House in the late 90s/2000s. She speaks of her experiences with different cultures that make up the Maindee area and of how Community House is beneficial to diverse people.

0 -3 Mins: 14 years ago, Jenny's police work identified a need to make better links with the local community of Maindee. She heard people singing in Community House as she was passing by and thought to herself: “Maybe this could be a good place to start. Maybe they will offer me a nice cup of tea!”

Jenny was welcomed into Community House with open arms and stayed ever since, that is, until her work moved to another area of Newport. Nevertheless, she still visits and attends many events here.

Jenny got involved with Bangladeshi and many other communities over the years at being within Community House, Jenny said that it is fantastic that Community House is at focal point and in the middle of Maindee. Jenny got thoroughly involved with the users of Community House – she went on a trip to Brighton with the Bangladeshi women. This trip opened her eyes to the similarities that she shared with the women, she found that very little divided her from the women and they even made Jenny feel at Home, she never felt excluded when with these women.

3 – 7 Mins: Many of the groups within Community House brought the young and the elderly together. Community House was also a good way to keep the community policy in touch with the elderly – Jenny said that the intelligence that she got from Community House she could write a book on. It helped to integrate the police and the community together. Jenny started a youth group within Maindee, she asked if Community House could open for the bored young people and ask them personally what they would want – by attending the youth group, the children had really turned their lives around, the youth group stopped antisocial behaviour in Maindee.

7 – 10 Mins: Community House opened up to invite all cultures and religions – English lessons and coffee and laughs was set up so that the cultures and religions could come together and a lot of people looked forward to it. Jenny said that it was ‘gutting’ that some of the groups lost funding. It was a shame because these groups gave opportunities to women to be open about their home life and report domestic violence in a safe space. It made a difference to a lot of people to have these groups. Jenny believes that Community House is influential to the community, and without it, Maindee would be lost – the community would not function as well.