Last week, I received a message from a grandmother. She asked to meet, a simple request: “Can we talk?” She introduced herself and gave context, it was in relation to her grandson.
I had to say yes, I could hear her tone, I could tell she was an elder and even though she was softly spoken, I could hear the sound of an hurricane approaching
We met at Pret in Dalston. She brought her daughter with her, aunt of the boy, it was her sister’s child, she looked so tired, you could see she was doing her best to hold things together. She did not need to hold space because it was her mum (the grandmother) who carried the conversation. She was focused, I sensed she was full of purpose.
She’s 79 year’s old, from Dominica, and been here in the UK since the 1960s. She was definitely the matriarch, not just of her family, but of the community. She is part of the Windrush generation, powerful people who arrived here with fire in their bellies and faith in their hands. They scrubbed steps, nursed strangers, braided hair in kitchens, worked in all areas of society, holding it together after answering UK’s call! I can relate, my parents are also of that generation, they came with little, but brought everything.
Gran spoke about those days before she deep dived into her grandson. I listened very carefully, my phone was on vibrate, she had my full attention. She spoke about the things she lacked in life, but what she did not have, the community made up for it.
She said "We had each other,". "We didn’t have much, but we had that. If someone was sick, someone cooked. If someone cried, someone came. We raised each other’s children. We didn’t need to have the same blood — we belonged to each other." When I told her my parents were also Dominican the look she gave me… it was her saying
I AM DEFINITELY TALKING TO THE RIGHT PERSON!
After 35 minutes or so she dived in.
Her grandson!
He just tUrned 15. He used to be full of life, the kind of boy who danced in the kitchen when he thought no one was watching. He loved football. He had a soft way with his younger cousins, always looking out for them. But now?
Now he’s angry. Always out. Barely eating. Barely speaking. He’s been pulled into something deep, phone robberies, county lines, older boys who make him feel powerful one minute and disposable the next. She sees the fear behind his eyes, even when he tries to look hard. And that, she said, is what breaks her the most.
She spoke about feeling invisible and lonely, no one offering real support. She spoke about the professionals who have entered her life. The school. The police. The YOT worker, Social services, this organisation. Every minute there’s someone new at the door. So many faces.
So many assessments. She said
“So many well-meaning people… It’s like they all want a piece of him. But no one’s offering him peace.”
And then she said: “What he needs is community.”
She spoke again about how the community kept her and her siblings safe growing up. She spoke about the buzz, the conversations, the connection and the safety. There were no secrets, everything has public knowledge and we all worked together. It wasnt perfect but they knew that all they had was each other and that connectiion was the prize, the oxygen. It's the unseen force that tells a child, "You belong here." It's the familiar voice that says, "I see you," when the rest of the world sees only a file, a risk, a problem to manage. Community offers what systems can't: consistent presence without condition.
I could hear the frustration, the pain and the demand for better! She didn’t need more services. She needed neighbours who knew him. A local man who walks with him and doesn’t ask questions. A safe place where he’s not being assessed, but accepted. Somewhere he can just be — messy, unsure, and still in the making.
“He’s not a case file,” she said. “He’s my grandson. He’s a child. And he’s drowning.”
We sat in that moment for a while. You could feel the weight of everything she wasn’t saying, too. The guilt. The exhaustion. The knowing that love alone hadn’t been enough — not because she didn’t give it, but because she had to give it alone.
“I raised him with love,” she said. “But I couldn’t raise him alone.”
Then… for the 3rd time or so, she went back to Dominca - (and she was allowed to)!!!!!!
And then she started to speak about how things used to be. Back home in Dominica, she said, a child didn’t just belong to their parents. The families raised you. The community had eyes on you, the streets belonged to us! If your mother was working late, you were fed. If you got rude in the street, someone corrected you — and then told your mum before you got home. There was nowhere to hide, but more importantly, there was nowhere to fall without being caught.
“We had this,” she said. “We didn’t need a scheme or a name for it. We just called it life.”
She continued! She knows times have changed. She told me what hurt the most was that no one even tries anymore. Everyone keeps to themselves. Doors locked. Curtains drawn. And when something happens, we ask “Where were the parents?” — never “Where was the community?”
“I see people talk about ‘saving the youth’,” she said. “But most of them haven’t even said hello to the young people on their own road.”
What she was asking for wasn’t charity — it was connection. Not a handout — but a hand held. Someone who could walk with her grandson, not to fix him, but just to remind him he still matters. That he still belongs.
She reaffirmed what I now know to be true and the only truth…. Community is essential! It offers spaces to be seen before you're in crisis. It offers the power of being known — not for what you've done, but for who you are. It's in the neighbour who brings your bin in without asking. It's in the elder who remembers your birthday. It's in the youth club where no one's watching the clock. It is presence — patient, persistent presence — that makes the difference between survival and sinking.
Before we left, she reached for my hand and said, “Please, don’t give up on boys like him. I know it looks like they don’t care, but they do. He does. He just doesn’t know how to show it. He’s been let down so many times, he doesn’t expect anyone to stay.”
I’ve carried her words with me every day since. Her story is one of thousands.
One of millions. But it’s not just her grandson who needs saving — it’s all of us. Because if we lose the village, we lose the future. And if we lose the future, what are we really holding onto?
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After all the schemes, the duplication, the lone-wolf building, the egos, and the well-meaning chaos — while our young people keep slipping through the cracks as adults argue over logos — people constantly ask me, “Davis, how do we fix this?” and although for years I reached for long policy answers, funding answers, strategic answers, I now see the truth is painfully simple: it doesn’t involve the Government, new projects, more pilots, or another charity forming next Tuesday; it starts with us — with tiny acts of courage inside our own homes, conversations at the dinner table, boundaries set with love, parents reclaiming their power, neighbours checking in on each other, families rebuilding trust, and then letting that ripple stretch out onto our street, our block, our estate, until unity becomes normal again; because the solution has never lived ‘out there’ — it’s lived in the small daily choices we make, the ones that quietly rebuild the village one household at a time, echoing the same spirit of community restoration calling us to rise, act, and rebuild as one.
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The Global Day of Community Restoration