Young people from Fitton Hill and Hathershaw are officially launching their campaign to raise awareness of the dangers of carrying a knife this week.
The knife crime awareness programme will be launched on Thursday 5th March at the Centre for Professional Development in Fitton Hill, and will unveil the new ‘Live by the Knife’ poster which has been designed by young people, and rolled out across the borough.
The project, which is delivered in partnership with Oldham’s Challenge and Support Team, and Positive Steps Youth Inclusion Projects, aims to raise awareness of the consequences of carrying a knife, and will involved various groups producing an ‘end product’ related to knife crime.
Andrea Taylor, manager of Fitton Hill Youth Inclusion Project comments, ‘The project has been running for 12 weeks. Initially the young people learnt facts and information about the legalities and consequences of carrying a weapon, true stories and pictures of injuries. They then discussed their views, the role of the media and knife crime.'
'The second part of the project was for young people to use everything they had learnt to make a poster which would raise awareness of this issue amongst their peers. They worked with staff to come up with a slogan, story board and message in group sessions, and then a designer to produce a poster, and photography which will now be distributed across Oldham, targeting young people’s centres.’
Chief Inspector Sarah Jones said: “This is very important and worthwhile campaign which will educate our young people about reporting knife crime and the risks associated with carrying weapons. The involvement of young people from the outset will ensure the message has more impact. Through this campaign we hope the young people of Oldham will help us spread this message about the consequences of violent crime.”
The Challenge and Support team will continue to work with targeted groups of young people to produce other knife crime related projects.
