Raised by Wolves

For those of you that don't know, I was born in the beautiful city of Wolverhampton. Only thing is, it's not all that beautiful. Although we do have local monuments like Wightwick Manor:

Which itself is very beautiful, we also have things that are not so beautiful. Take, for example, the riots of 2011.

The riots began in London after the shooting of Mark Duggan by police. They then quickly spread around the country losing their initial point. A rioter in Birmingham was asked why she was rioting and was quoted saying "it's for taxes, innit". No love, it's not. The riots then started in Wolverhampton. An already lacking city was quickly losing more and more businesses and, although it happened nearly 3 years ago, the aftermath is still apparent. 3 shops in every 10 in Wolverhampton are still boarded up or vacant - an unacceptable amount for a city with such a promising future.

It seems the only place any hope can be found in Wolverhampton is in it's teens. Although the small minority are still out to cause trouble, many others are wanting to make a difference. Out of the 170 pupils in my year at school, a good 150 of them dreamed of living in a city of beauty, peace and promise but in actual fact are living in a city of benefits, dirt and unemployment.

I remember at school being told the West Midlands was the country's hotspot for Sexually Transmitted Diseases and we all cheered. Now why was a class of 13 year olds cheering at that? Because we don't get anything else! Wolverhampton never gets anything and, in fact, the only prize I could name is the World's Worst City in which we got 5th place!

There are however things to encourage development in Wolverhampton. Namely, the WOSCARS - which I proudly won along with some friends when we were about 8! The WOSCARS is a Wolverhampton based OSCAR ceremony that encourages schools to make short films about their city. This is the clip that we made and I tried so hard to find the picture of the award ceremony but I couldn't!

 

Other than that, they never really seems to be all too much to excite children in my city. There's not really anything to excite anyone. Although there are much worse cities in the world, a city with so much history should have a good future but, from what I can see, it's only getting worse.

The good thing about our city however is our desire to protect it. Only people from Wolverhampton have the right to talk bad about it.

 

Sorry this took so long to get up, was having technological difficulties!

 

georgiadaisyiv