The Knife Awareness Project (KAP) is a specialist educational programme developed by ACT CiC to prevent youth violence. Our programmes seeks to engage young people and effectively challenge the types of thinking and behaviour that can lead to the loss of their own life or someone else’s.

KAP was developed following the fatal stabbings of five young people in Birmingham in a 12 months period, which began on 21st September 2012, with the stabbing of Kyle Sheehan (16), followed by Lance Gregory (24), Christina Edkins (16), Hasan Mahmood (15), Azim Azam (16) and ending on 21st September 2013 with the death of Joshua Ribera (18). This project aims to make our communities safer places for our children and young people to grow up in, by reducing the amount of young people that carry knives through a programme of powerful assemblies and emotionally riveting workshops delivered to educate young people of the dangers and consequences of carrying knives.

Knife carrying is now at epidemic proportions within the UK, and whilst government statistics show a decline in knife crime over the last 10 years, the latest information provided by the West Midlands Emergency and Trauma team suggest that up to 90 people per month are being seen in Hospital for knife wounds. Second only to car accidents, where they are treating as many as three people per day with knife wounds in the West Midlands alone.

Young people carrying knives or using any form of violent weapons is a growing concern for our communities…

This is even more harrowing when young people are killed senselessly. The devastating effects of the deaths of so many young people within our community has served to demonstrate that not enough is being done to prevent young people from carrying weapons and falling victim to violence.

We believe there is still much that can be  done, not only to prevent and deter young people away from carrying knives, but also in educating all young people in how to avoid or deal with life threatening situations. Knife crime is not a gang problem, many innocent lives are lost to knife crime needlessly. Our strategy is not only focused on deterring young people from carrying knives, but ensuring young people are taught how to stay safe and given realistic alternative strategies to deal with the issues that affect them.

This project aims to tackle knife crime by first reducing the amount of young people willing to carry knives.

We believe the vast majority of young people who carry knives do so without thinking about the risks, consequences and impact of carrying a knife. We want to affect young people’s thinking and make them think twice before picking up a knife, which is where our Assemblies and our Workshops come in.

It is our aim to reach as many young people as we can through our KAP assemblies, to ensure all young people are armed with knowledge, and a basic awareness of the risks, consequences and impact of carrying knives.

Our assemblies are designed for secondary schools and have proven to have a high impact in a very short space of time. Our assemblies include small dramas, presentations by victims and ex-perpetrators of knife crime, also family members who have lost loved ones. Young people will also be given the facts about knives in order to help deter young people from carrying them.

If you would like to contact us regarding this project, please email: kap@actcic.org.uk

For our other contact details, visit our contact page.