What’s The Point - School Knife Crime Project

Project has been completed (Dec 24)

VARIOUS SCHOOL LOCATIONS

What’s the Point?”Seeks to educate and empower young people to change the culture of youth violence.​

·       63 pupils have directly arrived at a ‘teachable moment’ and have participated in presenting this to their peers and received a certificate of completion by December

·       5 different schools have made a commitment to keeping each other safe

·       63 pupils now have the potential to save a life by responding to a knife wound with emergency first aid

·       740 children and young people now have a good understanding (with no prior knowledge) of Joint Enterprise – most said they would think carefully about the friends they choose and not be persuaded to partake in criminal activity

·       Schools have reported that individual students of concern were showing better relationships with staff in some cases

·       Pupils understand the statistics and likelihood of injury or fatality of those who choose to carry knives

Initial Proposal

We have successfully run 17 projects in primary and secondary schools in Newham over the last 3 years. Residents from Canning Town/Custom House and Stratford/West Ham voted for us in previous Community Assemblies to launch a new project in their schools. Once completed, we have been able to secure further funding from outside the borough to keep these project continuing in those areas.

We would like to share the success of WTP and launch the project in a third area of Newham to meet the local priority of keeping children and you people safe.

Over a number of weeks in the term, we work intensively with a small group of 10 participants in 6 local schools. We bring in community visitors who have life experience of the impact of knife crime. They meet with the young people to share their stories helping them to work together for a common cause.  We recruit our visitors from the local community including ex-gang members and victims of knife crime. We also provide visits from positive local role models - entrepreneurs, musicians/performers, sportspeople etc - who can share about the consequences of their decisions growing up around gangs and knives.  The group also get the opportunity to meet and speak with police officers, paramedics and other members of the community. This gives them a broader understanding of the issues, helps build bridges and equips the students with life changing skills. One young person was able to prevent their friend from dying from a stab wound as a direct result of receiving first aid training on the course.​This course saves lives!​

“WE NEED MORE OF THIS. MORE THINGS LIKE WHATS THE POINT TO HELP US THINK ABOUT THE WAYS THINGS ARE. THEY DON’T HAVE TO BE”

                          Yr 10 student 2019, LDEUTC

UPDATE JUNE 2024

We have now begun the project in 50% of the schools we bid for:

Earlham Primary

Park Primary

Colegrave Primary

and so are on course to reach 360 children this term in yr5 & yr6.

We have made contact and are in negotiations with 2 secondary schools - St Bonaventures and Stratford School Academy to start the project in September with Yr10.

We have continued to work with our partners at Ben Kinsella Museum, Street Doctors, G4G, The Met Police, and our amazing local specialist volunteers.