£5m centre is a dream maker

OLDHAM’S £5 million youth centre is already helping teenagers pursue their dreams — before it’s even built.

Chadderton 18-year-old Afrah Qureshi is on track for a career in architecture after helping design the new building, due to open in Egerton Street in the summer of next year.

She is one of 45 young people who have been working with renowned architects to create a design blueprint.

And now she is putting everything she’s learned into practice by studying for a degree in architecture at Manchester University, with hopes to create her very own grand designs.

The centre, which has received cash from the Government’s myplace fund, will boast a gym, IT suite, indoor performance space for films or plays, a netball court/dance area and a music studio.

Afrah, who met the Prime Minister earlier this year in recognition of her work to help secure the myplace funding, said: “I was originally asked to defer for a year because my grades weren’t high enough, but when someone dropped out they asked me to start straight away because they were so pleased with all the experience I had gained through my involvement with the myplace development group.

“Being on the group has given me so much confidence and I would never have taken to my studies the way I have without the invaluable experience I got from working with top architects.”

Architects Mike Davies, who has worked on the Pompidou Centre in Paris and is now redesigning the French capital, and Mark Serventi, who has worked on major residential and commercial projects for the public and private sector, worked with the youngsters. The young people also visited design projects up and down the country and asked teenagers what they wanted from the centre.

Myplace is part of Aiming High for Young People, a 10-year Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) strategy to provide young people with safe places to go and interesting things to do.

Administered by the BIG Lottery Fund, it enables the creation of world class youth facilities in communities across the country through the input of young people and cross-sector partnership working.

Afrah added: “Oldham gets quite a bad reputation with young people messing about, but this centre will get them off the street and give them something to do and it will be really well used because young people have designed it for other young people.

“I’m incredibly proud of all the work we have done on the myplace group and can’t wait to see the project we have helped to design become a reality. I can’t believe that a project so big has been my first experience of architecture.”

Jodie Barber, empowerment and participation officer at Oldham Council, said: “Afrah is inspirational. She has put her heart and soul into being part of the development group. She has realised the opportunities it brings and has run with them.

“This project has inspired the young people and many, like Afrah, are now looking into creative careers. It has also taught them that young people’s opinions count.

“This youth centre is what the young people of Oldham deserve and they have not seen anything of this scale and magnitude before. It will impact on every young person in our borough.”

Local benefactor Norman Stoller’s foundation gave the project a £250,000 kickstart when it was first mooted to help prepare the bid.