Southwark Community Affairs launch

In February, we launched our project to tackle youth crime in Southwark.

The event was held at the Ministry of Sound and was attended by young people, our inspirational Crimestoppers Community Champions, beatboxer Faith SFX, Choice FMs DJ Rollo, plus many more!

The event was held to celebrate the work of Crimestoppers and its partner agencies in Southwark over the last six months. The aim of the Crimestoppers project in Southwark has been to tackle youth crime by raising awareness about the charity Crimestoppers and to develop educational resources around gun and knife crime to be used in schools and youth groups.

What we've achieved:

Over the past six months, we've done a number of presentations at schools and projects in the borough, as well as youth forums. More specifically, we've delivered a series of innovative workshops. These have been delivered to: Kickstart, The Central Venture Youth Centre, Bells Gardens, and Leyton Square Youth Centres. The themes of the workshops were: 'Power', 'fear', 'moving out of comfort zones'.

In addition to this, we've done workshops with the police cadets and in schools. A significant workshop that we ran was in Harris Academy in Peckham. This was run as part of a citizenship day run by the Met Police. At the beginning of the session, we asked why the youth did not report crime, or what were the reasons that they would not report crime to Crimestoppers. Some of the responses we got were: ‘I don't trust no-one' or ‘I am not a snake'

Throughout the course of the day we handed out evaluation sheets after each workshop and we received 102 completed evaluation forms. 102 out of the 102 completed, explained that they now understood what Crimestoppers was, as opposed to some opinions at the beginning of the sessions that the charity were the police, or ‘that TV Programme'.

89 of the 102 evaluations said that they would now report a crime to Crimestoppers. This is a fantastic result, but shows that there is still work to be done – work that couldn't be done without the help of our Partner agencies within Southwark, and our Community Champions.

With the help of our partner agencies, we have delivered 26 workshops and have distributed 1,265 educational resources and packs within the borough.

Some of the resources that have been developed for use within schools include 'Crime and your community 2' - a resource about happy slapping; 'Crime and your community 3' - a resource about criminal damage.

More recently we have reviewed and improved the Crime and Your Community 4 resource, which is about knife crime.

We have also developed a DVD Resource, entitled 'Shadow CS – The DVD'. This forms discussions around knife and gun crime, whilst showing the viewer what happens when you call the charity Crimestoppers. When designing the DVD, we considered what a lot of the young people were saying during workshops, specifically that they did not trust the fact that the calls to Crimestoppers were anonymous and felt that they would be traced. The DVD will be available in April. Contact the Youth Projects Team to find out more.

More about our Southwark launch day visitors:

Chris Preddie, Crimestoppers Community Champion

Crimestoppers Community Champion, 20-year old Chris Preddie, has been an inspiration to all young people he's met. He used to be involved in gangs, guns and drugs before his brother was murdered in a drug-fuelled shoot-out 4 years ago. Now Chris has turned his life around - he's studying in his third year at University, is now a youth worker and tells young people about the benefits of Crimestoppers through his role as a Crimestoppers community Champion.

Read a case study about Chris Preddie.

Julie Facey, Crimestoppers Community Champion

Crimestoppers Community Champion, Julie Facey, is in the process of planning and opening 'Visionz After School Entertainment Centre' for 11-19 year olds in disadvantaged areas of South East London. The centre will provide extra-curricular studies, sporting activities, health advice, career opportunities and evening entertainment.

Read the heartfelt poem Julie wrote for the Crimestoppers Community Affairs launch.

Sharon Flynn, HMP Feltham

As part of the project, prison workers at Feltham have been talking to prisoners about Crimestoppers. They've been writing stories and poems about different choices they could have made in life and how Crimestoppers could help people like them. They also drew some storyboards to reflect what they've learned about Crimestoppers.

Faith SFX

Faith SFX is a talented British beatboxer who has supported Crimestoppers' events in the past. He provided some excellent entertainment on the day.

DJ Rollo and the 'Peace on the Streets' team from Choice FM

DJ Rollo presented some awards to young people doing good in their communities. Choice FM has been running a memorable campaign called 'Peace on the Streets', with the aim to prevent more young people from falling victim to gun and knife crime.

Read more about Peace on the Streets and watch their advert.