Thwarted dreams? Don't you believe it

The latest harbinger of doom predicting Bradford's demise was released yesterday, revealing that more than half of the city's youth have given up hope of ever amounting to anything.

The Thwarted Dreams survey's findings make stark reading for anyone concerned about our city's future and its future prosperity.

The survey, carried out by the Young Voice charity, has questioned 308 young people during the last 18 months and found that less than 50 per cent feel positive about achieving their goals.

Few feel they are being given the skills they need to succeed, while others believe they have become trapped in inner city ghettos.

But is this bleak vision of the future an accurate account of how the city really sees itself? Does Bradford's ethnic minority, who made up 86 per cent of the survey sample, really feel as disillusioned and as powerless as Thwarted Dreams makes out?

Bradford Council leader Margaret Eaton believes not - and argues that the report is flawed.

She said: "There are things in this report which are cause for concern but the trouble with surveys like this is that they become self-perpetuating.

"Without belittling the research I have to say that these people have come from outside, like a lot of people since our troubles in July, and they are not looking at the constructive things going on."

Solictor Iqbal Singh Sekhan, 28, served as the youngest chairman of the Bradford Asian Business Association and is actively involved with the British Urban Regeneration Association. He now works for one of the biggest legal firms in Yorkshire.

He said: "Bradford is as good or as bad as people make it! I understand that many youngsters have a negative view of Bradford; but I disagree with some of their views. I believe that people and their achievements determine the success and well being of people and not the place.

"I think too many youngsters in Bradford concentrate on issues of black and white segregation and cultural differences and create a race issue every time that they are constructively criticised.

"I feel that if they simply put their minds and efforts to achieving their goals they would not feel let down by the city.

"I have already gained from Bradford and hope that I will continue to do so in the future, but it is only because I have and will continue to put something back in."

Jeweller Wasim Qureshi, 34, believes there is more optimism out there than the report suggests.

Father-of-two Mr Qureshi, who works at Kesser jewellers in White Abbey Road, Bradford, said: "I'm definitely not downhearted. There are a lot of good, positive, sides to Bradford - it's just putting that positive thinking into action. I don't believe that the youth is as disillusioned as this says.

"There are a lot of people out there trying to make their own businesses or working in call centres. There is plenty of work out there. You just have to be prepared to do it."

However, Mr Qureshi said that ethnic youths needed better role models to give them something higher to aspire to.

He said: "We need to give children good role models. At the moment all they see is the drug dealers in their fast cars and it looks like an easy way to make money. We need to get rid of these people."

He added that one way of improving youngsters' prospects and was to make sure they were fluent in English - achieved by placing children in fully integrated schools.

He said: "For the last ten years we have had really bad schooling where Asian children are going to inner city schools where they never mix with white children.

"If they never meet any white children how will their English ever improve? Asian children in school are now speaking in their own dialect and worse English than their parents did. How can they expect to get on?

"My children spoke better English at home before they went to school."

Bradford is not short of the sort of role models that Mr Qureshi advocates, with businessmen like Afzal Khan leading the way.

Mr Khan built up his company Auto Design Technics from scratch in 1991 and now employs more than 20 people in the city centre, selling Porsches, Ferraris and Lamborghinis from his prestigious Petergate showroom.

So, is Bradford's youth on a downward spiral to oblivion or shooting for the stars in the footsteps of success stories like Wasim Qureshi and Iqbal Singh Sekhan?

The truth probably lies somewhere inbetween.

Indeed, there is much to be hopeful about in the new report, including the strides that schools such as Belle Vue Girls' High have made in involving parents in children's education while lifting their hopes and aspirations.

The emotively titled Thwarted Dreams report fails to represent the views of the full spectrum of Bradford's youth by focusing for the main part on the city's ethnic Asian youngsters.

Although the opinions advanced by the young Asians, who make up the majority of the survey sample, are unquestionably valid and relevant to the state Bradford finds itself in, it can't possibly reflect the views of the majority youth population who live outside the close-knit Asian communities.

The report has sought to take the views of one section of Bradford's multi-cultural population and to represent its fears and grievances as that of the whole city.

The resultant claim that only one in ten Bradford youngsters feels he has the skills to succeed could be viewed as hugely exaggerated if not scare-mongering.

But if the young ethnic population feels it is trapped in the ghetto of a "claustrophobic" city - as 18-year-old Tayba Sharif states in the report - where does the blame for this lie?

Is it a failing of Government or council to provide enough resources and opportunities for disaffected youth or is it family and cultural pressures that hinder teenagers' abilities to spread their wings?

Tabya believes that Bradford's problems are rooted in the pessimism that seems endemic in the city today.

She said: "When there's low self-esteem it's like a virus and everyone feels down. If the atmosphere changed in Bradford things could be different."

Margaret Eaton believes she could unearth just as many young people who feel positive about their future as those focused on in the report.

Perhaps it is time that we started to focus on these - then we might finally have a good week for a change.