Youth To Lobby Home Office With ‘Real’ Knife Crime Solutions

After encouraging members of the public to pen ideas for combating knife crime inside chicken boxes, a youth-focused organisation plans to hand these to the Home Office on Monday morning.

On Saturday, Word On The Curb – a youth culture content agency backed by the London Mayor – began canvassing people to write potential solutions for Britain’s ongoing spate of violence outside of Westfield shopping centre in Stratford, east London.

Dozens of Londoners stopped to share their thoughts as the movement gained some social media traction; over 100 ideas were submitted in total, such as more investment in youth services and greater financial assistance for single parent homes.

This comes in response to the Home Office’s #KnifeFree campaign which was widely slammed as being ‘offensive’ after being announced on Wednesday.

Hayel Wartemberg, co-founder of Word On The Curb, praised the “passionate” response to Saturday’s event.

He told HuffPost UK: “The #KnifeFree campaign has taken its most insidious step of racially stereotyping, undermining and patronising Londoners – young and old – with regard to issues surrounding knife crime”.

 “Whilst we believe the intention behind the campaign was without malice – what it has come to represent is how out of touch the decision makers are at the home office, the lack of diversity in their team and also the unconscious bias that demeans and criminalises young people – particularly those of colour in our country,” he continued.