Published on November 10, 2009, 5:55 am
Features
As knife crime remains a persistent problem within our communities, the streets of London are not as safe as they should be. As a result, many young people are opting for perilous methods of protection in order to stay safe on the streets.

On Friday October 30, I attended the Rise Empowering Safety event, an anti- knife crime day for young people.

The event aimed to bring young people together from different areas of North East London to learn self defence skills that can be used as a safe way to avoid potential attacks.

The day begun with a nutritious breakfast and networking session which allowed the young people to mix with each other and introduce themselves.

The first activity of the day was an enjoyable self defence workshop provided by the Green Man Training Company.

The two humorous instructors engaged with the young people through short stories of their experiences and a few jokes. The young people were taught very useful ways to defend themselves against attackers and safely disarm those wielding knives.

I felt that this was an effective exercise as it demonstrated that there are safer ways to protect yourself and carrying a knife need not be an option.

One young person who attended the event said:

"I felt that the event was different to other programmes I've been on as we had the chance to get really involved and it was really fun. I think I definitely learned a lot and I would recommend people to come next time."

After lunch, the second part of the day commenced with a series of drama workshops by A Little Bigger Theatre Company.

Young people got warmed up with a few dramatic exercises such as a game called freeze, where two people acted out a variety of topics. Then someone would shout out "freeze" and replace a person and change the scene slightly from where the previous person left off.

A Little Bigger Theatre then performed an anti knife crime play, which explored the consequences of carrying a knife and a few other current problems facing today's youth.

When asked about the necessity of the event, Patricia Mcleod, owner of Rise Empowerment said:

"The reason why I felt this event was necessary was because I found out my son was carrying a knife for protection and after speaking about it to him and friends I knew I had to do something about it."

According to Mcleod, the purpose of the workshops is to reduce the number of young people arming themselves with weapons.

"If young people know how to defend themselves against attackers they'll be more comfortable in their daily lives and won't feel the urge to carry a knife."

Another Empowering Safety event is planned for the New Year.

For further information about RISE visit http://risempowerment.co.uk/ .

Breaking News

Knife killers will now face a minimum prison sentence of 25 years in future, adding 10 years to the maximum sentence, the justice secretary announced today.