KEY POINTS:
Youth workers in Otara have their eyes on an old building in the town centre as a suitable venue for a $3 million youth facility.
At an Otara community planning meeting this week, residents and community workers from various agencies met to discuss plans to improve their community.
Sully Paea, who has worked with South Auckland youth for more than 25 years, said he would like to buy the old Farmers building on the corner of Bairds Rd and Newbury St - to create a "massive" facility specifically for youth.
Mr Paea, who is the co-manager at Crosspower Ministries - a branch of the 274 Youth Core programme in Otara - says having a central building for a drop-in centre would help prevent crime in the area, as youths would be able to see the opportunities available to them.
"It'll be a youth focus, with dance, music, performing arts and sports and hip-hop - all the things that youth are focused on now.
"It's a meeting point, a point of connection, where we could get into the positive side of hip-hop and follow the steps of other local artists which have come out of Otara."
The former Farmers retail building, now a nightclub, is priced at around $3m.
"The price they got [for it] is a bit too steep - $3m - but we need to have a facility run by us, not by outsiders. We're doing something behind the scenes, but that place is a perfect spot. It's central, near MIT [Manukau Institute of Technology] - we could hook up with them and promote school work."
Residents and youngsters at the meeting called for a facility which would be safe as well as interactive, with access to computers, the internet and printers for school projects.
An information centre giving youngsters advice about schooling options and family planning was also suggested.
Mr Paea said youth workers in the area needed to work together to set up bigger and better youth centres to give troubled youths a different option.
"If you're going to take kids out of gangs and tell them they shouldn't be selling drugs for money, you have to give them something. You have to give them another opportunity."
