Grants of up to £50,000 are available for individual organisations, and bids of up to £100,000 will be considered for projects for work between partners and across boroughs, against knife crime in London, the Mayor Sadiq Khan has announced.
Last month the Mayor of London hosted a summit, bringing together the schools inspectorate Ofsted, the Metropolitan Police, Transport for London, parents and young people who have been affected by knife crime. The summit also fed into the development of a new downloadable toolkit, based on the London Needs You Alive theme, seeking to support schools to join in local anti-knife crime activity, offer guidance on how to identify those at risk and respond to incidents.
The Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime, Sophie Linden, said: “Knife crime ruins lives and devastates communities – every death on our streets is an utter tragedy. We cannot solve this problem through police enforcement alone. We need to send a strong signal that carrying and using a knife is more likely to ruin your life than save it, and do more to educate young people around the dangers of these weapons. Young people are London’s future and we need them to know how much we value them and that they shouldn’t put their lives at risk by carrying a knife – London needs them alive.
“As the Mayor has made clear, it takes a village to raise a child, which means the whole community – parents, families, teachers, schools, youth clubs or social workers – playing its part, and working with young people themselves and the community groups they know and trust.
“With this new funding, we want to empower local initiatives that are absolutely vital in helping to protect vulnerable young people and lead them away from a life of crime. I urge community groups across the capital to take up the opportunity to apply and be in with a chance of transforming their work and the lives of young Londoners and their families and friends.”
The deadline for applications into the fund is 5pm Thursday, December 21, 2017 and information on how to apply is online at the London Community Foundation website and the MOPAC (Mayor’s Office for Policing And Crime) bidding opportunities page.
For the Mayor’s Knife Crime Strategy, visit https://www.london.gov.uk/mopac-publications/mayors-knife-crime-strategy-putting-stop-knife-crime-london. For ‘London Needs you Alive: Don’t Carry a Knife’, visit the campaign page.
The prospects for policing and crime prevention in London in continued austerity featured in the December 2017 print issue of Professional Security magazine.
