Youth Worker of the Year

David Wilkie, 2012's ‘Youth Worker of the Year', is a youth worker based on the Bournville Estate, Weston Super Mare. The Bournville Estate belongs in the bottom two per cent of the most deprived areas in the UK. As part of a ‘Streetspace’ project, David intentionally moved into the community where his young people lived in order to do detached youth work among them. He was nominated for ‘courage, commitment and dedication to young people on the edge’. This is his story:

"Our initial calling to Bournville was through running a youth group in a church outside of the estate. A lot of young people from the estate would turn up and cause fights and there was a real culture clash. I found I couldn’t get to know them properly without understanding their culture, so we decided to move on their estate and do incarnational youth ministry.

The highlight this year was that by living on the estate I got to know young people personally in our personal space. There’s a 13 year-old lad who lives next door to me and he looks after my chickens when I’m away. The other day I was putting fences up and he and his mate joined me and started mixing cement. For me the highlight is always when those professional and personal boundaries break down and you’re just left as one of them, as part of their community.

The award came at a significant time for me. I resigned from my current role a week before hearing about it, and it comes as a real sign from God that I am still called to youth work."