Islamic Centre, Butetown, Cardiff, Wales, UK. 6th Feb 2020.
With today’s technology, phone boxes have become quite out of date in our societies. Who is actually still using them today? In Butetown, a community that have had challenges with drugs in the past, have identified the phone boxes as a place for many to take or sell drugs in their neighborhood – Resulting in a demand by the local residents and religious leaders in the community to remove these phone boxes out of their area. BT, which owns the phone boxes, have since then removed two of them – But the community is still saying more phone boxes has to go.
Sheikh Mohamed Toulba, Imam at the local mosque says, “I’m pleased with how our community came together, regardless of different religions and beliefs. We are the eyes and ears in our community and it was only right to speak up against BT’s old fashion boxes. It didn’t serve our community at all, it did the very opposite. This has given us a good example of how we, as a community, can make a stronger impact on things when we raise our voices as one. It’s another step in the right direction towards a safer environment in our community. Butetown is not a place for drugs.”.
BT have not yet removed the rest of Butetown’s phone boxes and Sheikh, along with many other residents, are now asking themselves – Is this something BT wants to be associated with? The local community centre, mosque and church are now in the process of collecting as many signatures as possible in order to show the further support behind them against the BT phone boxes and what it does to their community.