Voices Not Violence Returns as a Five-Week Programme

 Tue, October 26, 2021

With youth violence currently at an all-time high in our local area, so we've teamed up with Highgate Newtown Community and Kentish Town Community Centre to deliver a five-week outreach programme called Voices Not Violence.

This project ran previously in 2019 as a series of workshops offering young people the opportunity to speak out on the subject of youth violence through film. Young people came together to discuss what youth violence means to them, how it has affected them and how it can be solved. Using these discussions, they produced a short film to act as a future provision for young people in the borough.

One of the young people who attended the programme said there had been "two stabbings on my road this year." Jamie Weight, who runs the Youth Hub and coordinated the project, said, "We are getting the views about violence from young people. The film will give people who fund organisations like youth clubs and the local council the evidence to keep running things like this." Learn more about the film here.

This year's programme consists of five sessions ranging from self-defence techniques, first aid course, legal advice and a Q&A with the Metropolitan Police. The sessions will teach 12-19-year-olds about the dangers of addiction, knife crime and gangs, and lifesaving self-defence and first aid techniques.

So far, Paul Hannaford, ex-addict and gang member, spoke to a group of young people about the dangers of addiction, drugs and alcohol, and involvement in gangs, knife crime and county lines. Camden Martial Arts taught self-defence techniques called Filipino Kall, and Street Doctors ran two lifesaving sessions around what to do if someone is bleeding and if someone is found unconscious.

For more information about this ground-breaking youth-led programme, please email youth@ktcc.org.uk.