The Dispossessed Fund: The ex-con who helps turn young lives around

Jamal Rahman — who served seven jail terms — now runs his own community group, one of dozens of projects that will benefit from a new £1 m grant. David Cohen reports
Jamal Rahman, Programme Director, Norwood Community Group Services, a grantee of the Dispossessed with BIG Lottery director Dharmenda Kanani, who is giving the Dispossessed another £1 millionÖ. Jamal runs a back to work project, pictured with Elliot Forder-Hudson 24 (body warmer) from Streatham and Carl Burke 25 from Brixton
Alex Lentati
9 November 2012

Jamal Rahman was a bright 14-year-old living in Tooting when the wheels came off his life. His parents split up, he was expelled from school for fighting, and emerging from a Pupil Referral Unit at 16 with no GCSEs and no father to guide him, he began to get into trouble.

It started with petty shoplifting but when a few years later his mother emigrated to Barbados, leaving him homeless, he became a career criminal. By the age of 27, his charge sheet ran to three pages, mainly burglary of shops and houses. He served seven sentences and five years inside Wormwood Scrubs, Brixton and Wandsworth jails. Then something shifted.

“When I came out that last time,” said Mr Rahman, “I was 29, I had read lots of books and something inside me clicked — I decided I was worth more than this and would never do crime again.” But going legit was hard. “I had no qualifications, a criminal record, and two children to support. The one thing I had was a reputation as a person who could handle himself. So I decided to train and start my own security company.”

Over the next decade,Mr Rahman, now 49, became an iconic figure in the security industry, working as security or personal bodyguard for the likes of Beyoncé, James Brown, the Saudi royal family and the American actor and hip-hop star Mos Def.

He also did VIP door-work at the Emporium, a West End nightclub then favoured by footballers such as Andy Cole and Dwight Yorke.

Six years ago, Mr Rahman had a vision that he could help other “lost, struggling” youngsters and he started Norwood Community Group in Lambeth. Starting with nothing, he got seed funding and built a £40,000 programme that now helps hundreds of marginalised young adults by offering them weekly sports programmes as well as courses giving practical routes into employment.

Last year, the group received a £6,620 grant from the Evening Standard Dispossessed Fund, one of 126 disbursements made from the £1 million given to the Dispossessed by the Big Lottery Fund. Mr Rahman used it to run a “back to work programme”, putting on three training courses that enabled 31 people to get qualifications as a National Door Supervisor and seek work as door operatives or guards.

Visiting his programme on the eve of a second £1 million boost to the Dispossessed Fund from the Big Lottery Fund, Dharmendra Kanani, 46, England Director of the Big Lottery Fund, said: “Jamal’s group is living proof of what our People Powered Change ethos is about. I see his extraordinary community spirit in hundreds of projects we fund. There are lots of people like Jamal who are written off by society but who, with a little support turn their lives around, and pull others in their slipstream.”

This latest grant takes the total raised by the Dispossessed Fund to £9.3 million, and is inspired by the paper’s recently launched Ladder for London campaign that gets jobless young Londoners into work through paid apprenticeships. The £1 million will be distributed in grants to charitable groups that help Neets on the path to training and employment.

“We are collaborating to support the base of the ladder in Ladder for London because if we can put people on the road to a job, we allow them to break from past cycles of dependence,” said Mr Kanani.

Mr Kanani, 46, also met two beneficiaries of Rahman’s programme — Carl Burke, 25 and Elliot Hudson, 24 — and recalled his own childhood on the wrong side of the tracks. “When I first came to London 40 years ago, I was six years old and we lived in a refugee camp,” he said. “We had fled Uganda because Idi Amin had begun ethnic-cleansing the Asians. On the way to the airport, we were stopped by the military who put a gun to my father’s head and threatened to kill us. My dad bribed them with gold jewellery and we got out safely.”

The Kanani family arrived, unable to speak a word of English, to face the wrath of the National Front marching on their refugee camp and shouting, “Asians out!” Soon after they were decanted onto a council estate in the new town of Harlow in Essex.

“We arrived with nothing, but our neighbours helped us with clothing, bedding and buddies to take us to school. I will never forget that — my first taste of the positive power of community. Later my parents got jobs in factories and I went on to university and a career with the Commission for Racial Equality.

“Two years ago I joined the Big Lottery Fund in England and we launched People Powered Change, inspired by the kind of people who helped us when I was young.”

Carl Burke, listening intently, broke into a broad smile. “Dharmendra was on my street when he was young, but now he on posh street! He inspires me and gives me strength to do it too.”

Carl suffers learning difficulties, including dyslexia, and left school with one GCSE. He struggled to find employmen but after taking the Dispossessed-funded security training course with Mr Rahman he got his Security Industry Authority accreditation and has since worked at the Olympics, Paralympics and cricket at the Oval.

The Olympics was amazing,” he grinned. “I was on the door for boxing at the Excel Centre. I saw VIPs like Lennox Lewis, Amir Khan, Dizzee Rascal — it was the best job I’ve ever done.”

Elliot Hudson, who left school with five GCSEs including an A-star for English, said that since doing the SIA-accredited course with Mr Rahman, he felt “valued” by employers. “This course made me feel I’ve achieved something. It’s given me hope. My goal is to run a security company like Jamal.”

Jackie Meldrum, deputy leader of Lambeth council, has praised and his volunteers: “They do excellent work. They hold karate classes, run a football programme and help young people qualify as security staff, giving them confidence and self-esteem.”

Mr Kanani said he hoped the latest collaboration with the Dispossessed would support groups helping thousands of young Londoners towards employment. “A little money goes a long way. The £6,000 we gave Jamal’s group amounts to a big pile of hope for the likes of Carl and Elliot.”

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