Manukau Mayor Sir Barry Curtis says peace will reign forever in his city after his council gets on top of the youth gang violence which saw one man killed and several youths severely injured last week.
Sir Barry chaired a two-hour meeting of 150 community leaders yesterday and said the meeting agreed on the need for more youth workers.
The Government has already agreed to fund a new youth services co-ordinator in Mangere. Sir Barry said he would talk to his own council and new Social Development Minister David Benson-Pope about hiring more youth workers in Mangere and Otara.
"We'll find ways of funding that with or without the Government," he said.
"Some of our young people have been expelled from school and go home and go on to a correspondence course but don't have the support they need. They go out on to the streets and meet a lot of like-minded young people and finish up creating these crews or gangs that we hear about."
But he said the gangs involved only about 500 of Manukau's 140,000 people under 20.
"I have every confidence that by applying a whole-of-government, whole-of-community approach, we are going to get on top of this problem and peace will reign forever," he said.
Sir Barry said he would not be at a "Mangere peace conference" at the Nga Tapuwae community hall from noon to 3pm tomorrow, because of other engagements. But he has called a follow-up meeting with Manukau school principals next week.
Mayor promises peace will reign forever
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