Youth club celebrates

Thursday January 26, 2010

A White City youth club has celebrated its first year with a spectacular birthday bash - and is looking ahead to another year of fun.

Keeping Youth Active, a Saturday club for five to 16- year-olds, threw a party for members and volunteers on January 16 after officially turning one on January 10.

Chairwoman Dawn Lewis, 42, said: "The day was wonderful. We had about 40 kids attend and there was a bouncy castle, kickboxing, arts and crafts and street dancing."

Dawn (right), who lives in Ormiston Grove, Shepherds Bush, said the youth club was the latest incarnation of a Youth Task Force which she helped set up after the murder of 16-year-old Kodjo Yenga, who was stabbed through the heart in Hammersmith in March 2007.

Dawn said she had started both youth clubs in the hope of keeping local youngsters on the straight-and-narrow.

"The aim is to take them away from having nothing positive to do, which can often lead to crime," she said.

KYA is also quite a family affair for the Lewises. Four of Dawn's children - Melissa, Kayleigh, Tyrone and Nicola - work as volunteers at the club and her 11-year-old daughter Renelle is a member.

The club meets at Phoenix High School, The Curve, each Saturday during term time from 10am-3pm, and has 60 members.