Description:My name is Kam Kalirai, my family emigrated to England from The Punjab, India in the early 1960s before I was born. I have never been to India and have lived in Birmingham all my life. I went to schools in Edgbaston and then in Smethwick. I didn’t go directly into further education but into employment. I continued my education much later on in life and now I am a lecturer and teach business studies programmes. My recent employment was at City College, Birmingham and the campus that I chose to work at was St Georges. I had never been involved in Newtown before I moved there for work. At first I was a little concerned because I had heard a lot of negative stories about it, however having been here for 11 years I feel perfectly safe. Even though I have read a lot of negative media reports of drugs and gun crime, I have never personally felt threatened at all. I am aware of the deprivation within the area as I have managed many youth projects and have become familiar with the local community. I would like to be able to improve the image of Newtown and help to give hope to those people who live here. I have learnt a lot about the area and realize that it was quite an affluent area many years ago, people from this area moved as new communities moved in, this has happened over generations now changing the demographics of the area. Currently it is an area with communities that are split; it does not help with a dual carriageway in the middle of Newtown separating it like an ocean between continents. This project is important to bring together the communities and to remind them of what a great place Newtown was / is and can be in the future!