Chay Pulger briskly shuts the door behind him and apologises for the Spider-Man outfit hanging on the back of his son’s bedroom door. Dressed in a black long-sleeved top with black headphones on to accompany the look, the father-of-one who has worked on the D’eynsford Estate in Camberwell for four and a half years clearly cares about young people.
It was that desire to help their lives improve over the past two years that led him to start a community-led project of designing their basketball court to which residents would call ‘home’.
“We thought about how we could actually improve that space, bring the families in together… in order to making that space somewhere that they can call home,” he said.
Pulger, a housing manager born and raised in Sutton, is the tenant management organisation (TMO) manager for D’eynsford estate in Camberwell.
In January 2021, Pulger’s estate, D’eynsford TMO set up an Instagram page to announce to residents their plan of redesigning the basketball court that sat in the middle of their beloved estate.
The initial idea was developed by Thomas Morgan, an arts lecturer and a volunteer on the estate. Inspired by the campaign ‘Project in the Paint’, Morgan and Pulger joined forces to redesign the basketball court.
When coming up with the initial idea, Pulger mentioned: “Well I know that during the pandemic it was very, very difficult for everybody…but we always felt that the kind of forgotten victims were the children”.
“When the schools shut down that really impacted I think, the children and the parents with small children’s mental health”.
After seeing the effects Covid-19 had on communication and interaction, Pulger felt something had to be done in order for people to collectively contribute to a cause.
The lockdowns caused by the Covid-19 outbreak in 2020 forced schools to shut down, leaving all children to stay at home and receive education through technology. Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER) reports that the average score for children with negative behaviours and emotional difficulties rose from 8.2 in pre-pandemic years to 9.3 in late July 2020.
Whilst keeping socially distanced and Covid-safe, Pulger believed that his estate had to do something to give the children something to enjoy and to improve these figures, at least in his estate.
The basketball court is in the centre of their estate, with many flats’ views looking in on the court. “The basketball court is an extension of what they feel is a comfort, and that is ‘home’”.
“One of the ethos of our organisation D’eynsford TMO is ‘by the residents, for the residents’. That’s always our thing. So the formulation of the basketball project was actually by the residents”.
Between August 16 and 21, D’eynsford TMO set up painting workshops in order to prepare residents for painting the court. After this, they set out to paint the real thing.
“We had residents from outside of other estates coming, so it was like different estates, different children from different estates playing basketball together”.
The slogan of ‘home’ on the court holds a deep meaning to Pulger and the residents at D’eynsford. “I think the word ‘home’ is so important to them because during lockdown, that’s where everyone was most of the time. But also they feel…the community side [of the project] is a massive part of their home as well”.
The project brought a range of positive changes to the estate when it was complete. Pulger ponders the behaviour around the estate once the painting process came into action.
“Prior to it being colourful and what it is now, it was a redundant basketball court/football pitch, so we had a lot of kind of anti-social behaviour…that dynamic has completely shifted”.
The basketball court also opened a number of free workshops and clubs to further push the community activities that Pulger feels is important for the estate to have.
In reflection on the project, Pulger is proud of the work he and his team were able to accomplish and is hoping to leave a legacy on the estate.
The court is now ready and available to be used and enjoyed by the children on the estate in Camberwell, South London.
