Government and religious institutions are ruminating on how to rescue black youngsters from a life of guns and gangs. The government-funded Reach report said they need a new generation of role models, not the rappers who glamorise crime. The Bishop of Manchester, Nigel McCulloch, entered the debate by calling a meeting of Anglican clergy and saying churches need to work together more in this area.<\/p>\n
Heather Green works in Manchester, in the area south of the city that saw the killing two weeks ago of Tyrone Gilbert while he attended the wake of an earlier gun victim. She runs the Rainbow Christian Centre in Hulme, which aims to reach the young people the churches tend not to, and recruits current and former gang members to encourage children not to throw their lives away. Green told Sunday about her godson, a former gang member.<\/p>\n
Jo Aldred is a bishop in the Church of God of Prophecy. Several months ago he undertook a project to discover what the wider churches are doing to tackle the gun problem.<\/p>\n