#ActionAgainst-KnifeCrime with UK Youth Parliment
28 Jan 2019
by Orielle, NKBL in schools, Implementing NKBL locally, NKBL toolkits, NKBL and youth work, Peer education
We’ve partnered up with UK Youth Parliament for their national #ActionAgainstKnifeCrime campaign.
Knife crime was voted the most important issue for over 1.1 million young people as part of UK Youth Parliament’s Make Your Mark campaign so when UK Youth Parliament asked if we’d like to collaborate with them on the campaign, it was a definite yes! No Knives, Better Lives have been working with young people through our local partners in Scotland for nearly 10 years so we know the strength of peer education to prevent knife carrying.
Busayo Oyedoyin, Member of Youth Parliament for Hackney, who has been campaigning on the issue said “Mental and physical health, education, youth services, social media and community outreach must be prioritised in order to tackle the issues underpinning knife crime.
“We believe knife crime must be categorised as a public health issue. This approach would allow different agencies and services to come together to tackle the issue properly. The Government must do everything in its power to address this issue promptly.”
The #ActionAgainstKnifeCrime campaign aims to challenge the idea that carrying a knife is ‘normal’ and encourages young people to take action for the lives of other young people.
We worked with UK Youth Parliament to put together a toolkit to support MYPs to prepare their own local campaign and run activities in schools or youth groups. The three activities in the toolkit are designed to promote discussion and learning, whilst also giving MYPs valuable information they can use when talking to their MP. Each session ends asking participants to complete a Positivity Pledge about why it is important to keep young people safe and alive.
The campaign will run until October 2019 when MYPs will come together to report and celebrate their successes.
