Jadiel Millwood

There’s a strong community spirit

A lifelong resident from Lozells, Jadieal Millwood’s work has a direct impact on the area’s next generation.

Jadieal was born in Lozells and has lived in the neighbourhood for his whole life. He works and manages a youth facility in the area, “I am a resident here, in Lozells. I’ve been living in Lozells for all my life really. And I work in Lozells and manage a youth facility as well”. 

Like many of the younger residents in Lozells, Jadieal can trace his mind back to the 2005 riots which caused a shockwave throughout the community, “It was a bit of a worrying time, partly because of the potential race dynamic and the impact that could have had further on. I felt that the community responded well to that and it hasn’t left that dampened mark in the community in terms of how the different ethnicities in Lozells engage and work together and have that vibrant feel. That’s one of the things I love about Lozells”.

Briefly mentioning Lozells’ diversity, Jadieal says, “Each community, it’s a community within a community” in reference to the many different ethnic groups that co-exist in the neighbourhood.

The 2005 riots led to 2 deaths, changing the lives of many in the Handsworth, Lozells and Perry Barr areas. Jadieal maintains the view that the community made an effort to unify and attempts were made to keep normal relations between neighbours, “Nothing really changed in terms of the way we dealt with each other as neighbours. My neighbours are Pakistani on one side and on the other side, Bangladeshi. They didn’t treat me any different, they weren’t fearful, I wasn’t fearful”. He goes on to further say that, when possible, attempts to challenge views of revenge or “retribution” were ultimately challenged.

Lozells has always been a troubled area however, Covid-19 heightened fears among community members. Jadieal recalls how the community responded and reacted to it, “It took a while for the community to get to grips with it. The information-flow, and determining what was propaganda and what was actual truth, it took a while for the community to understand what was fact and what wasn’t. As a whole, the community then started to respond well in terms of the mask-wearing, the shopkeepers introducing their one-way system… the costs didn’t skyrocket, they could’ve took that opportunity to say ‘you know what? We’re going to increase because the demand now is more’”.

With new families and communities moving into Lozells, change is always inevitable. Jadieal expands beyond this by saying, “New families, new people coming into an area that they have no tie to in terms of a history and a knowledge of what the area is like and they’re trying to a part of the community where, I’ve put them into 2 categories: Those that are embracing Lozells as it is, and those that are coming in to change Lozells to be more what they want it to be like”. He goes on to say that “Lozells is a safe area” which has a “strong community spirit”.