BBBC: Bromley By Bow Centre

When we were told to select our themes for the summer school, three options were there: sustainable communities, environment, and enterprise.

I chose communities because at that time, environment and enterprise's importance was not very obvious. As the weeks passed though, and especially as our London study tour ensued, the importance of all three dimensions came together rather nicely.

My group went to The Bromley By Bow Centre on the second day of our study tour. What I realized there was how drastically I had underestimated the importance of environment on people.






Rob Trimble was taking us on a tour of the place and inside the church where it all began, he pointed to small wooden chairs. Twenty years ago, they had the option of buying mass-produced plastic chairs for the children day care centre that were cheaper. But they went ahead and got custom made Victorian wooden chairs. It's a simple gesture, but it goes on to say something very significant. The day care centre did not economize on something that children might use, getting the wooden chairs was about giving the best available for those kids in a slightly underprivileged area of the city. This concept is often missing in the charities and homeless shelters that are established in developing countries. The standards are fairly low, but then again, there is the fact that funding is also very minimum.

Similar examples followed in terms of the hospital that the centre has. There are no CCTV cameras in the entire place. The concept was to show people that they are trusted, and in effect people feel that obligation not to be engage in destructive behaviour.

The hospital facility the centre had did not look like a hospital. There were wide green spaces. The doors opened inwards in warm welcome. The reception desks were deliberately set lower so that the people coming in would not be intimidated and be at eye level with the person on the other side of the reception. Many people living in these areas belong to Bengali and Indian communities who feel very easy in coming to the centre for help. (Even their webpage has an option for Bengali translation).

It's incredible how small things like these that we often underestimate can have such an impact on how people behave.

A surprise treat at the end of the day was to see a small horse parade for under-5 children, which we all, of course watched. :)