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Stealing cars, dealing drugs, fighting your rivals with guns and knives - that is everyday life for some youth in Birmingham, a city in the UK midlands. It is a far cry from the swanky hotels and designer shops of Birmingham's town centre just five miles away from the run-down district of Lozells, where unemployment is high and drug-dealing is commonplace. In Lozells and its bordering areas a life of crime is an all-too-easy and tempting alternative.

Reuben Tomlinkson has first-hand experience of the effects gang culture can have. His life was changed forever when he watched his much-loved cousin die in his arms after a violent shooting. Reuben could only watch in despair. But the trauma was enough to act as a wake-up call to him. From then, he vowed to look for a more positive way through the tragedy.

Now a member of The Young Disciples, a group of local 20 and 30-year-olds who have experienced some of the worst aspects of life, Reuben has began initiating projects to encourage young people to make a fresh start. Some of the best ways to get youth to avoid gang culture, he says, is through music and football. "I'm letting the young people express themselves. Once that comes out of them we can then start to work on what's inside them," he says. "Because if we don't understand what they've got inside them, how can we do anything for those young people? So you've got to have that understanding."

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About Al Jazeera - Witness

Rageh Omaar presents Witness, a half-hour daily documentary series which features short, specially commissioned or acquired films gathered from independent filmmakers.
 
Each documentary reveals the unknown lives of ordinary people, following their lives, telling their stories and portraying the challenges that confront them. Our witnesses are people in a situation or those who have observed them first hand.
 
The films cover conflict, belief, the past and the future and as well as bringing new stories to light they showcase the talents of a new breed of multi-skilled, frontline journalist. In the studio, Rageh will further explore the issues raised in the films, with expert guests on the subject matter and the filmmakers themselves.