The Community Base essay competition

In 2004, 2005 and 2006 Community Base held essay competitions where we asked secondary school students in Brighton and Hove to write about their communities and how they could be improved. Here is an extract from one of the winning essays in 2004 entitled What makes a community a good community? by Zoë Green, then aged 15, of Patcham House Special School

I live in a community that is misjudged.

Before I moved to Moulsecoomb I never went out so used to be stuck in my house all the time doing nothing. Where I lived no one would help each other and no one would be there to list. That is not a good community! However in Moulsecoomb people help each other and stick by each other. This is a sign of a healthy community.

Even though people in Moulsecoomb find it hard to get a job or try to get help from the council, just because they live in Moulsecoomb, they are not defeated. Once I went in to MacDonalds and there was a girl from Moulsecoomb working there. She had given me the wrong meal so I went back to someone else (because I didn't want to upset her) and the lady said “I'm sorry about her she's from Moulsecoomb” and it is not just one person, others are prejudiced against us too. That proves that even Moulsecoombers are not trusted in MacDonalds.

My boyfriend has tried to get a job down town and as soon as they find out that he's from Moulsecoomb, they say that they haven't got any jobs to fill. He's been looking for a job for the last two years. I also know people who have tried to get jobs as policemen, but they are always turned down. This is discrimination because where you live doesn't make who you are.

People are too scared to move to Moulsecoomb, but as long as you don't get on the wrong side of people you'll be alright, in other words we all need to get on with our neighbours. The same as where ever you live, there will be people that you don't want to get on the wrong side of where ever you live.

Therefore a good community is a community that sticks together and helps each other out with problems. I would say that Moulsecoomb is a good community because we stick by each other through the bad and the good.