Knife Crime Corner- A week of total ‘Khanage’-by Courtney Barrett.

During an absolutely horrific week in London,there have been multiple stabbings, numerous riots, and racial tensions like we have never witnessed before.Its been an alarming week of absolute ‘Khanage’ for London!

With Sadiq Khan seemingly missing in action, there doesnt seem to be anything at all being done about the extraordinary rise in knife crime across London.As well as Khan failing us, we also have a government who are too concerned about Brexit to worry about other pressing issues.

So far this month 28 people have been murdered by knife in the UK. Most of them in London. That’s 28 people fatally murdered in 28 days due to knife crime!

The questions on the tips of everyone’s tongues, is “Why does Sadiq Khan do nothing to reduce knife crime in London”, and “Why are the government not doing anything to deter people from carrying knives”?

I genuinely have no answer to these questions, as I’m just as incredulous as everyone else that nothing meaningful is being done by those in power to quell the knife crime epidemic in London and the UK.

The only conclusion i can draw upon, is that those in power either dont care about the devestation knife crime is causing, or they dont have a clue how to reduce knife crime. Either way it is extremely disappointing that Londoners are still living in such terrible fear of knife crime.So many parents are scared to let their children out, and so many children are scared to even go out. This isn’t the society we want! This isn’t a society that we want our children and grandchildren to grow up in!

So what can we do about it as a community if those in power are ignoring the problem that’s so obviously one of the number one concerns of the community?

Well along with many others, I have given up on waiting for those in power to do anything to improve the safety of us residents of London! In truth, we have been waiting for those in power to make the necessary changes needed to reduce knife crime for too many years now.

This is why I felt the need to unite communities and start reducing knife crime ourselves. It prompted me to start the Binning Knives Saves Lives campaign which we first launched in Waltham Forest, where the community support was better than i could ever of hoped for. So many of the community appreciated and supported what we were trying to achieve. Especially parents who were so thankful for the efforts we made in their community. Lots of donations to enable us to operate came rolling in from the whole community who really got on board with us in reducing knife crime across their borough.

With their help and support we done an amazing job, reducing knife crime in Waltham Forest by 34%, whilst knife crime rose in every other borough across London. We also amassed over 1000 knives in our now world famous amnesty bin.

Binning Knives Saves Lives now aim to do the same in Havering as we done in Waltham Forest. For myself personally this will involve a lot more hard work, but if the community of Havering get involved and support us, it’s well worth it, because together as a community we can reduce knife crime, and help to make Havering safer for everyone.

The great thing about BKSL coming to Havering, is that in this borough we have extra help. We will be working with an other anti knife organisation in the borough to help make it as safer place.

So that’s what you can do as an individual, and as a community, to make yourselves and your children safer from knife crime, instead of waiting year after year for those in power who continually let us all down.

It’s time to fend for ourselves, and make a stand together! Parents, teachers, shopkeepers, and the whole community, this is your chance to do something about it if you want a safer community and a better future for your children.

I urge every reader to go to Binningknivessaveslives.com and donate a few quid using the Paypal link, which will help to enable us to do the great work we do.
We are hoping to launch in Havering asap, but as we are totally unfunded we must wait until we’ve raised enough cash so we can work our full knife crime reduction strategy in Havering. So get donating and lets make Havering the safest borough in London.

You can visit the BKSL website to see all the fabulous work we’ve done, and you can also follow me on Facebook to keep up to date with everything we are doing, and our future events too.
Binningknivessaveslives.com
By Courtney Barrett (The Knife Man)