London Wildlife Trust receives funding in the fight against violent crime
London Wildlife Trust, which has been working with young people to prevent them becoming involved in gun, gang and knife crime, has been awarded funding to support their vital work.
The Trust has received over £28,000 (over three years) from the Community Fund and the Youth Sector Development Fund. They are one of more than 150 organisations nationwide that have been awarded over £2.3 million to tackle knife crime and support victims.
London Wildlife Trust’s ‘Wild about Bushcraft’ project will focus on providing 556 young people (aged 11 to 18 years) with opportunities to learn new outdoor skills and connect with nature and green spaces. The project will take place at East Reservoir Community Garden in Hackney, where young people who are at risk of being involved in crime will develop new skills, increase their self-esteem and will have the opportunity take part in outdoor activities as part of a team.
The Trust will provide young people with unique hands-on environmental experiences in urban wildernesses. Through coordinated sessions, local young people will gain the confidence, knowledge and skills to help improve East Reservoir Community Garden - a site that used to be an inaccessible green space with no community engagement or ownership before London Wildlife Trust took it on.
Activities will include: shelter building, foraging for wild food, water purification, traditional fire lighting methods, positive knife use for wood carving and other materials, how to make cordage from natural materials, outdoor cooking on camp fires, tree planting, coppicing, reed pulling, wetland management, structure building, pond dipping and step building on site.
“London Wildlife Trust sees the ‘Wild about Bushcraft’ project as a really positive way to engage at risk young people. Using our unique bushcraft activities in the inner city, we are well placed to reduce crime and fear of crime in London” says Leah McNally, Director of People and Wildlife for London Wildlife Trust.
Announcing the funding, the Home Secretary Alan Johnson said: “The organisations receiving funding work tirelessly with communities at the very frontline of the fight against knife crime and demonstrate how at every level we are tackling serious youth violence.
“I am committed to making our streets safer by tackling the minority of young people who commit serious violence through enforcement, tougher sentencing, and also stronger prevention, sending out a very clear message that it will not be tolerated.”
The funding is part of the government’s one-year extension of its Tackling Knives Action Programme (TKAP) announced in March. TKAP now works intensively in 15 areas affected by knife crime to reduce the number of knives on the streets, as well as with the British Transport Police.
Story from Wildlife Trusts