Raqhib Islam

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A BIKE project that has been equipping youths with confidence and maintenance qualifications in Somers Town for 14 years has expanded into Gospel Oak.

Your Bike Project has this week started running upcycling and cycle maintenance workshops alongside Cooperation Town Hub, next to Bacton tower, where disadvantaged people learn how to fix a bike from a mechanic and can also get a free cycle.

The team, which began its work in Somers Town, is doing outreach on estates and at Thanet Youth Club.  Raqhib Islam, 27, told the New Journal that the ever-increasing privatisation of land in Camden means inner-city kids have nowhere to go, adding that he was once one of them until joining the now-closed Bengalis Workers’ Association youth club.

He said: “Before I even went into a youth club, I was just ‘loitering’ around the Euston area, as the police like to call it, because there were not enough provision of activities at the time. It’s so easy to frame anti­social behaviour when it’s just a bunch of young people on a street corner. And that’s the reality of it.

“But the amount of times me and my friends have been literally just catching up on a corner and just because we’re men of a certain skin colour and ethnicity, it’s like ‘let’s demonise these guys’.”

Your Bike Project hopes to be a place where young people can go, and get an AQA qualification in cycle maintenance, which can lead to employ­ment opportunities.

“A young person we met just after the lockdown failed his A-levels and he was upset,” Mr Islam said. “He was a bit traumatised by the fact that all his friends were going to university and he’s left behind in Somers Town.

He joined our upcycling cycle maintenance project for six weeks. Once he completed the programme we provided him with a reference for a job in the mechanical trade and he started the week after.”

The team will be based in Cooperation Town rent-free for the next three years, but will be looking for have a permanent base to call home. Your Bike Project uses stolen bikes donated from the police when owners cannot be traced and donations from local businesses.

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