A Hackney teenager’s dream of improving his neighbourhood by running free Diversity-style dance classes for young people on his estate, has become a reality after he won a national competition.

Wacky Rymel, 16, came first in the Good 4 The Hood competition, run by the Home Office and MTV to find a young person with an inspiring plan to improve their local community.

The A Level student will now receive funding to hold free street dance classes for other youngsters on his Hackney estate for the next six months. He is being provided with audio equipment, a venue and costumes for his students. He will then be given details of ways to get further funding so he can carry on his dance classes.

Wacky, who has just started at City and Islington College, said: “I’m very, very pleased to win this, it was quite a tough competition with many entries, so I’m really happy I’ve got this opportunity to get my idea going.

“I’ve been dancing for quite a while now, since I was about nine years old. I always liked going to classes and started thinking maybe I should start my own.

“Before the competition I had already started up some classes, which were successful but it was hard to organise a venue and it was expensive to hire the studio and everything. Now MTV are going to help me out funding a venue and costumes, it should really take off and encourage more people to come. I’m expecting around 10 to 15 people to come to my classes.

“The reason I thought of the dance classes as a way to improve my neighbourhood, is because I believe that kids do what they do because they have nothing better to do.

“The main problems in my area are gangs, and gun and knife crime. In my opinion this all stems from having nothing to do – these aren’t bad kids – they do this as a kind of entertainment, because there’s nothing else around or they don’t know where to look.

“I thought ‘if i can get these classes up and running, it will give them something to do on a night, and we can start performing at shows’. The aim is to get people off the street.”

Good 4 The Hood is part of the Government’s drive to prevent young people becoming involved in crime and empowering them to make a difference in their own communities.

The competition, which received more than 300 entries, was run through music channel MTV, which asked young people to send in their ideas for improving their neighbourhood. A panel then selected some of the best proposals and posted them onto the MTV website, where viewers voted for their favourite project.