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from Cathy (cathyvpreece@aol.com)

Touch of Jean-ius

Jun 21 2002

By Vicky Wilks, South London Press

JEAN HALEY works harder voluntarily for her community than most people do at their paid jobs.

Seven days a week, the devoted 65- year-old strives to improve life for the people of Gipsy Hill, West Norwood and Upper Norwood.

In the early 1970s, Jean and her family were among hundreds from tower blocks across Lambeth who were rehoused on the newly-built Central Hill estate.

After a few years, they began to have housing troubles which Jean got involved in helping to sort out. Then in 1984, she became chairwoman of Central Hill Tenants' and Residents' Association - a post she still holds today.

She also became a tenants' representative on the Lambeth Housing Committee and a member of the Tenants' council. But while she worked to improve housing, Jean realised the estate was deteriorating in other ways - crime was becoming a problem.

In a bid to bring cops and community closer together, the determined mum-of-two started the Sector Four Policing Working Party which fought to keep Gipsy Hill police station open.

Jean explained: "We wanted to do things for the area because we felt we were being left out. All the funding was going to Brixton and Kennington. Now they have discovered this is a deprived area."

In 1998, Jean's contribution to her community was recognised by Lambeth council, which gave her a civic award. But she didn't stop there - the following year she opened a resource centre on Hawke Road where people could get together for coffee mornings, mums and toddlers groups, go to an advice surgery and IT centre and get child- care.

Football

Soon afterwards, Jean was instrumental in setting up a partnership with Fulham Football Club which saw local youngsters get coaching during the holidays.

Her latest achievement was the opening of a second resource centre in a row of empty shops on Berridge Road. Cathy Butler, who nominated Jean for an Inspirational Voluntary Worker Award, said: "How she manages to deal with all the various issues and problems and can still find time for friends and family, I can't say.

"But manage she does. Anyone that knows of her will vouch for the effort she puts into trying to help people of all ages living in Upper Norwood."

* Do YOU know a hero who deserves to be nominated for an award? If so, get the SLP and on pg 6 you'll find the categories on the bottom right of the page, fill out the form below and send it to us.

© owned by or licensed to Trinity Mirror Plc 2002

(posted 7951 days ago)

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