The Hybrid Hub Podcast
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The Hybrid Hub Podcast
A Call to Arms: Confronting the Knife Crime Epidemic Together
What if you could play a pivotal role in solving the heartrending issue of knife crime, especially in the UK? This episode opens the discussion on the alarming rise in knife-related offenses, with statistics from March 2022 painting a distressing picture. Hear firsthand about the profound emotional impact this has on victims' families, as we emphasize why knives should not be part of people's everyday lives. We equip you with insight on societal and community-based solutions aimed at rooting out this issue.
Shifting gears, we uncover the glaring lack of funding for crucial services like childcare in deprived areas. We explore how this void is affecting our communities and why it necessitates the intervention of government through investment in local communities. We spotlight the crucial role of NGOs, outreach programs, apprenticeships, and the individual's responsibility in offering much-needed support—especially to our young people. We share the transformative power of youth outreach programs in offering our young ones an alternative to a life of crime and violence.
In the final stretch of our conversation, we unpack the significance of mentorship in education and community development. Hear how mentorship, from primary school to university, can inspire, empower, and guide children to pursue their goals. We share how play and recreation can promote children's development, and the role of early intervention programs in teaching essential life lessons. As we close, we invite you to reflect on your role in addressing this issue, underscoring the importance of collective action—parents, communities, governments, and local councils—to provide robust support for our children and teens. This episode is a call-to-action, urging every listener to be part of the solution to these pressing problems.
Hi guys, hello everyone. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you might be.
Speaker 2:Hi sir, we want doing. Can you just imagine the weather? We are in October.
Speaker 1:It's raining, though it's raining, it's. I mean, that's what it's meant to be.
Speaker 2:It's been. It's been like really warm, not not too hot like. It's just surprising, you know, like you have this kind of weather, you know, but with everything happening, we get some. This will happen anyway. Yes so today we've got a massive topic, something that we think is eating deep into the fabrics of our society, especially in the UK. You want to tell us more about that.
Speaker 1:Yes, so it's. It's horrible, is heartbreaking. First of all just want to like Took up, just address what's happening in, you know, gaza and Israel and everything else I feel like you know there was happening again. I know we know Ukraine at war and they have been at war for. I think this is the second year right.
Speaker 1:Yeah but it's just, you know, listening to the news and just watching or seeing live pictures because I think the Daily Telegraph have put a picture out from, you know, israel and it's just Grossom. It's disgusting to see and it breaks your heart. You know, being a mom, being a parent and just being a human being, and you know we are blessed that we are weak and we don't have to check our backs and don't have to, you know, watch out for those kind of like missiles and bombs and things like that. But you know, our hearts and prayers are with all the different nations that are, you know, attached to this in one way, for more ship or they actually experiencing it as we speak.
Speaker 1:But today I just wanted us to just Not give our opinion but just see how, you know, knife crime can be tackled, because I think knife crime is a very massive issue and it's taking it's kind of like robbing our generations to come. You know a lot of people are picking up knives. I listen to different stories. I mean going to back when I was growing up, knife crime did exist, but it was not this brutal. Maybe I wasn't that exposed to it but.
Speaker 1:I think I grew up near areas like Tottenham and and there were those wars that used to happen between the different areas. You know, are you from the east, are you from the south, are you from that kind of stuff? But I feel like now it's, it can be at your doorstep. Really, at this rate. It's very sad, and I was just looking at statistics and I was looking at the national. You know the official national statistics in the UK and they're saying as of the year ending March 2022, you know the related offenses were 45,000, but as we speak right now, there's been an increase making it to 47, 49. It's just is how does it get there?
Speaker 2:How skyrocketed.
Speaker 1:How has it become?
Speaker 2:like the norm, like I feel like we're being.
Speaker 1:Decentristized to think that people feel like we are taking a step forward, but with these statistics you think we are taking a step backward.
Speaker 2:First of all, let us you know no respect, the, I mean the, the latest on what the leader was stabbed. There are two people actually Stabbed in Croydon the same day. I mean I think it was the following day or same day. No, not same day. It was, I think, a day apart, a day apart, but the the lady story was just gruesome and just.
Speaker 2:But knife crime is night crime. Both of them died from. I'm not sure what the second person died, I'm not sure, but definitely obviously we know about the lady she lost Alive through that. And when you hear a story like that of young teenagers, what, in the first place, what comes to mind is why do you think you're going to be a leader? My mind is why do they have knife on you? Why do you, even in the first place, like knife should not be on you for I don't know, for any reason Like this, shouldn't be having knives, and I know that this conversation has been going on like forever. So where we are in 2023, going to 2024, and here, here we are still dealing with people Having knives. So how many people do we know goes with knife out? Then, like, how would you know even who is having knives? Like I know this happened in mostly, I will say, places where people call like more, is it the private area? The people will say let's privilege.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like in those areas. But you know this is a problem that is is a national problem. It could happen to anyone. Yeah that's why we all need to pay attention. That's why we want to talk about it today. We want to talk about the situation, but we want to focus more on the solution. You know what we started six, you know. We just want to go through some statistics. I know you've got some statistics there. What are those saying?
Speaker 1:but I, you know, I was just looking at the statistics and from like 2015 and you know, to 2023, the figures are high. I, you know, I was just trying to go through and I was like, oh my god, like even during the lockdown, statistics were high. I mean it dropped slightly. But you know, the figures I can see here were like from the year ending 2020 2019 to 2020 15,928.
Speaker 1:And you sit there and you're like, oh my god, oh my god, like Having kids, like I'm scared, like my kids are growing now and I'm just like, because most of these attacks they're unprovoked yeah, the girl on the bus. Was that a provoked attack? Is it justifiable? Did that child deserve to die? And does anybody deserve to die?
Speaker 2:Put a parent in in the kind of Out of out of their recover from that.
Speaker 2:That is, a whole child has got a bright future ahead of her and and and that is it and I'm not, she's not alone a lot of families who have been in this situation, so we're not just isolating. One situation is because this just happened recently and we're just using it, but this happens to a lot of family. Are there some, even family, that we've not heard about? But we could, probably would not have heard about this if it doesn't make it to the news. It's a lot of them happening that doesn't even make it to the news at all.
Speaker 2:So we want to focus on the solution, like I said, you know we've seen some alarming statistics Like from what you, from what I. One of the sizes I saw it was around 47,000 now in this year and, like I think, by March or May this year.
Speaker 2:It has reached 47,000 from the year 2020 to 2023, and that is too much. So what is the way forward? So, because I don't want us to dwell too much on the problem, we can keep talking about the problem, the problem, the problem, but how do we Reduce or it to eliminate, if it's possible, this real problem that we have in this society?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I just think you know people might not want to hear this but stronger law enforcement. So, you know, with that I mean like people working together, like the different agencies working together in order to like help, like put the right interventions in place to prevent, then, you know, the knife crime happening. I mean they can just having, even though, like you know, the, these organizations, like the police and whatever they and local communities they trust has to be built.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:If you're telling some people, put the knife down first of all, why are they carrying these knives? Right, there's reasons. I mean some people might carry for no reason, ideally, in an ideal, what we wouldn't want anybody to be holding a knife.
Speaker 1:but I've listened to different you know radio Conversations. I've listened to podcasts. I've listened to different situations and people. These are stories of people that have actually carried these knives and their case is that I was scared and I thought that that's the way I could protect myself. I grew up in such such an area and that's and this thing, the thing about carrying knife has got nothing to do with where you come from. It's more of what? What environment you're in?
Speaker 1:Yeah you know you can have, like you know, the working class parents so you can have a well, what you call it, you can have. Parents are strict. You know people think, oh, kids are carrying knives, the parents don't care, they're not strict. Parents are strict. You know. Parents are telling these kids what they should be doing, but you know the child lives the house. Are you telling me that we have to now be checking their bags?
Speaker 2:And if you do that, the way this country is even set up. Sometimes you can do things like that because you'll say you're violating the child's Privacy.
Speaker 1:I try to solve for more privacy Miss within this country.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a lot of good things about the social system.
Speaker 2:But, it also has a lot of, you know, setbacks and things that I shouldn't Be, because I think obviously you Parents should be given more controls and allow them to you know, to, to, to look after their children. But if a child raised a concern about safeguarding right now, everywhere we don't understand, that case will be taken seriously. Okay, we are still focusing on on knife crime. I want to start with the issue Of the school. You know, we want to take it from what the schools can do, what government can do, what we as a parent can do, and what we as individuals know parents.
Speaker 1:Uh, on its own, but, also everybody collectively as a whole, yeah, so let's start with.
Speaker 1:Let's start with the schools Right so I think, with schools They'll probably have to. My my opinion will be like Implementing, like monitoring, like interventions. So, okay, you know, you know this, stop and search that happens in the, you know, on the streets, in the communities. I think if that's something that can be done in schools, fine. If not, they can Invest that the government can invest into Like devices that can be used to detect what a child is carrying into school, because, at the end of the day we are, these are all our children. They should be feeling safe at school.
Speaker 1:Yes, I agree with that need of a child having to carry a sharp Instrument into school into a school building into a school environment. You know, some people can turn their nose and be like, oh yeah, well, my child will never do that. But you don't know.
Speaker 2:You don't know, because anything can happen and they might be moving with somebody that is doing it?
Speaker 1:No, they tried my. Your child might be on the receiving end. Yeah, they might not carry the knife Exactly, they might not even know the people that are carrying knives, but they might end up on the receiving end, god forbid. Yeah, so this is what we all need to pay attention.
Speaker 2:You know, it's not until it gets to all star, we're gonna react, isn't it? And I feel like if we all take the okay, you've mentioned something about school that's they're thinking some preventive measure and I want to support that. Like, at least, I think school should have a div. I know there are some schools that cannot afford it or let the government buy it, right, but there are so many schools, maybe private schools and all that they can have these devices. Um, what do I say? I have these devices in their, in their premises, whereby it was canned, students as they come in Right into the school and they should have a security guard there that is in monitoring it, a male and a female in the morning to make sure that no child Is carrying any sharp or knife, or whatever it is, into the premises. Do you think that will work or do you think there's something?
Speaker 1:I mean obviously there will be a kick a kick, fight about it. I think like finances play a big role in a lot of things it's cost.
Speaker 2:It's the cost of struggling the time struggling at the moment.
Speaker 1:The schools are struggling, is you know? Staff are underpaid. There's a lot of things going on.
Speaker 2:Shout out to every teacher anywhere out there. I mean, it's the pandemic. Taught me a lesson. Sorry to digress a little bit with all everybody clamoring for better, pay better pay. The teachers have not really cost a lot of like stairs but they're underpaid.
Speaker 1:No, but yes they are, but they have been. They have been having like strikes in schools because obviously my side's, yeah, but wasn't as bad as some.
Speaker 2:Like I don't think it's just no, no, no.
Speaker 1:I think it's just depending on what can like, what your organizations are willing to, you know, to kind of like agree to. But they are campaigning and I think I remember, during the pandemic, teachers were given a rise, dentists were given a pay rise. Um, there was another, there was another sector that was given a pay rise. But yeah, we digress. I just also wanted to talk about, you know, like there's, there's a root cause to everything, right, underlining issues. So we can talk about. This is the problem. This is our survey, but if the underlining issues that lead these children or young Young adults to carry knives are not addressed, in the community.
Speaker 2:That's all the problem.
Speaker 1:We're not going to solve the problem. So things like you know, there's poverty, social inequality, lack of opportunities, um thank you for highlighting that lack of opportunity and social equality.
Speaker 2:Let's take lack of opportunity. A lot of Cancers now are saying that there's no money in. Some of them are going bankrupt, isn't it?
Speaker 1:Look at so many cancers now.
Speaker 2:You were telling me about some area that you used to live in right that has a good child care system. And suddenly that thing disappeared completely.
Speaker 1:Yeah right.
Speaker 2:And you were you are see, saying it constantly that that was the best thing that you had in the community. That how can the best thing that you have in the community? Someone is looking after children raising children.
Speaker 1:Lack funding, lack of funding and it disappears.
Speaker 2:And things are getting worse?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think they. You know the government has to really assess and just invest in, like deprived areas. In that sense, when I talk about deprived areas, we, we all, live in them. You know they, some, they, every area has a something that's actually missing, but with some areas it's worse than anything. There, you know, the healthcare the primary care centers are Is deprived, like there's no you. You know you want to see a GP. You have to. Either you show up at the GP practice at eight o'clock or you'll be on the phone for half an hour and by the time they pick up.
Speaker 1:Oh no, we couldn't get an appointment. You're looking for nurseries to put your kids in. There's no nurseries available I. I drive almost 20 minutes to take my son to nursery.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean the area, because the area that I live in.
Speaker 1:There's no nurseries anymore. I mean there's a lot of things I there's well, there's a lot of things that have to be Like, kind of like, addressed. You know, mental health, the community, like the way you know these areas are set up, there's no support, there's no funding. Nobody's going to come every single day to support young individuals if there's no funding to it yeah okay, so we talk about get the.
Speaker 1:You know the government investing in local communities. There's like outreach programs, ngos. The government has to back those NGOs. They have to back those um outreach community programs in order for the work to continue to be done, or else the work is not, the work will stop because there's no funding that people can now find out of their pockets to better the nation, although people are doing that, but to what extent?
Speaker 2:you see, you're right and you know what I myself and if one other person with at one point. We're doing something what we call like we're supporting young black. You know people especially get into, uh, uni and get into work. We're doing that at some point. But there was no support and you know me as a person as well, as I was doing my post-grad then and you know I just felt, like you know these things, you have to really source for everything yourself no support. And it was successful because there was even a time that one of my brother, uh, uh, he organized one for within his community whereby and it was successful, it was somewhere in lutein, right, and it was able to make a lot of success in their whereby he started with it is children and children's friends he started like, uh, mentoring them, right, and there were a lot of when eventually open up the program to the home community, they had a program that we had to cover in photography and other.
Speaker 2:When I went there I was surprised they used a hall whereby the hall was almost filled up with teenagers, right, but one of the things that he said was that there was no support. He was practically using his own money for to do every single thing. It's got family, it's got stuff. I know it's part of our responsibility, but there's, if there's no support, there's little or nothing that you can do. You can do it for a while unless maybe you have a booming company or you have a personal company that is doing so well that you know you have money to. Unless you're in that kind of a situation, how do you fund these things? There's, there's no support in the community to help these people get into activity. There's apprenticeship right now, right, there's apprenticeship. I'm involved with the apprenticeship, right.
Speaker 2:Why can community make sure that, if you're, if, if the children or let's say the teenagers, are not in school or anything, they try and get them into one apprenticeship program or the other? Being spursor by the by by by these councils. I know that they are all claiming that there's no money. There's no money, but is it not better for us losing life, people dying, falling on, you know, dying every now and then saving people by making sure that those people are into this apprenticeship program? In apprenticeship there's apprenticeship for almost everything, right? So what? Whatever they want to do, they can find an apprenticeship program for these children, and I've seen apprenticeship turn a lot of people's life around. So I think community plays a massive role and we are feeling our communities are filling our teenagers. They are filling our children and the councils needs to rise to education. Government needs to make sure they look into this properly and see how these councils can support our teenagers much better. What do you think?
Speaker 1:yeah, and also like going back on the education, you see if all this, if they're the right, what you are trying to talk about, I think it's called the youth outreach programs, where they, you know they make they provide this constructive activities, mentorship, support networks to like get young people away from violent places. So for me, if a child is under you know, in growing up in a underprivileged area, and they, at the end of of school, they go home, you know parents are working, there's nobody at home, and they finish school nobody, there's no accountability at home. Having those outreach outreach programs it will keep their mind focused on sports, it will keep them busy.
Speaker 1:They will spend their time going into, like music and you know music initiatives they will be part of. Like leadership, development opportunities. These are things that will not only benefit them, keep them off the streets, but will also help towards their future as they grow. Because you know, in in the Bible it says you know, show that, you teach that. You know what's the the thing they talk about children. Show the child where you should, yes, and they will not depart. For me. So every it's not just about teaching them the ways, ways of life, but this will also, kind of like, give them the confidence you give them a sense of belonging.
Speaker 1:I've been listening to programs where these young children have come into this country without their parents you know asylum seekers and their stories. The reason why they can be even on platforms like that to discuss such things is because they has a that these programs have made a very big impact on their lives, impacting their communities, and they have that they have kept them off the streets. I also feel like, even as parents, you know, organization should involve, like you know, this parental involvement and support that I'm talking about. It's just engaging parents and guardians and foster parents and anybody that has a legal responsibility for a child to have to be involved in educational programs. We are not saying that we, you know your children are actually carrying a nice personally, if there was a program that talks about how we can, you know, as parents, what we can do together, how we can come together to help our children, to support our children, to encourage them, to advise them and to bring this awareness that children need to see, that they will see from hear from their parents.
Speaker 1:Because, you know, every morning I I don't I'm not perfect, I don't do it every day, but I try to speak something good in my kids' lives it we, I argue with them, we complain, whatever, but as they are going into school, I'm like this is what is expected of you, this is what needs to be done when you're in school, this is what, you know, the teachers expect from you. And I end up with I love you, you know, but I have. I've made my point clear to them, I've addressed that. You know you have to show manners, you have to be respectful, you have to be disciplined, you have to listen, you have to do what is expected of you and what we have told you at home. So it's just about having the balance of, you know, parents also playing a role in this. Like we can't just put the blame on the government.
Speaker 2:We can't put the blame on the community.
Speaker 1:We can't put the blame on less funding, but we all have to be accountable at some point.
Speaker 2:You know you'll see your areas, for example you know, something that I wanted to say is that in a lot of parents they'll notice earlier on that their children is maybe going off the track, right?
Speaker 2:yeah especially people from, maybe, single homes. Right, and it's not a bad thing to shout out to all the single mothers and all the single fathers out there. However, what I wanted to say is that when you see your child going like excited to go, you know off the rail. At that point I always encourage what you call his parents and guidance. Do you have any mentor around you?
Speaker 1:right mentorship do you have?
Speaker 2:somebody, probably in your church or maybe somebody in a local committee that you, that you guys play together or you do a kind of maybe some game. We go to the swimming me, somebody that you talk to, but that person is a it's a successful person, is maybe in his, in his um industry.
Speaker 2:Right, he could mentor that child right you know there's a way you can speak to someone to mentor your children. They don't have to see your children when you're on there. I mean they can see them. Just check on them once a week or twice, give talk to them encourage them you know we parent, we want to raise our children in isolation.
Speaker 2:I know that. But sometimes we know that we can't do certain things. We know that we're losing them. But why can't we just find somebody who can be a mentor around us? It could be a family member, it could be somebody from our church, it could be somebody from anywhere, but these are people that you can mentor your children. Take advantage of it.
Speaker 1:I think. But sometimes, you know, with parents we also struggle with um, we, we are quite in denial. You understand, like, if something you will, as a parent, you will notice like okay, I can see, this is going left.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But then you're like okay, where do I go?
Speaker 2:Don't talk to the kids you want to accept.
Speaker 1:You're either in denial, you don't want to accept it, or you're scared that what are people going to think about me? But then that's where it talks about having the right people around you, having the right community, having the right support. And if you've created like a good bond with certain people, for example, if it's people in your church or people just in the community that you, you know, your kids, look up to, your kids' respect, then there's a way that they will be able to speak to them. That you're not getting through to them, because most of us we won't admit it. Most of the time when we see something going wrong, we'll start oh what's wrong with you, what's wrong with this child? Blah, blah, blah. You as a parent, you're just shouting and shouting and shouting.
Speaker 2:Let me tell you a story.
Speaker 1:Whereas somebody else could attack it on another way and be like all right, let's go for a walk or let's go for a meal. I want to tell you a story and that's the way we can find that balance. Because, as parents, you're scared, You're like I don't want to lose my child, I don't want this to happen to my child. Okay, let me just share the story.
Speaker 2:So when I, when I came into this country, the first thing my sister did was because I think she knew that, because obviously I have not seen her for a long time. So we, we know, we'll just be in the house randomly. Then she would tell me about this man in church. Right, he would tell me about, you know, the, you know the man obviously is somebody from, like it's from the similar background, you understand, and he would tell me about, oh, this man, you know his deeds, his accomplishments, doing that, he's doing this, and he wasn't saying it to spite me, he was saying it for me and he also spoke to the man, do you understand? And the man saw me and the man called me and his man started talking to me. So I asked me questions, you know, not in a very intrusive way or whatever.
Speaker 1:Just you know, show interest.
Speaker 2:Yeah, show interest and the more I heard about what the man is doing and as busy as the man is the man is even involved in the committee and the church and he was serving was doing stuff I was like, wow, this man is like and it's not like he's got everything in life, but you could see that he's a responsible person. You know doing well and he's doing it and that kind of meant. After speaking to me, I feel more motivated and that's why I feel like mentorship. Although some of my mentorship can go wrong, I do know that. That's why people are also being careful, especially when it comes to female children. Do you?
Speaker 1:understand what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:I know we need to be careful, we need to play right, we need to make sure things are done properly, but I still think that mentorship, I would say that thing, that process alone. She didn't force it on me, right? She just told me a little bit about that man and I wasn't even paying attention at first. But when I even saw the man, the man and he was speaking to me was just such an on-board man, do you understand, was such an easy man going, and I was like look at this simple man. He has achieved a lot like this and this is like this, do you understand. And I was like man, I have to achieve, I have to do something proper, you know, and every time you have a conversation we talk about funny things, joke about you always also set the record right to make sure that I'm on the right path. I'm doing what I'm doing, do you understand? And that for me was just help me keep going as well, although it's not directly saying doing this, doing that, but what was saying was eating me deep.
Speaker 2:I wanted to be more responsive for myself and do things for myself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think mentorship is encouraged. Funny enough, they'll talk about mentorship when you're in, probably when you're going into work and stuff like that. Because when I finish my degree you have to do a sepsorship, which is part of like capital nurse, which is a thing that new nurses get into. It's a year of just doing like reflective study and you get the support around you just to make you be more equipped for the role you're getting into. So if we can provide those kinds of mentorship on that level, I think they should be mentorship in primary school, they should be mentorship in secondary school, they should be mentorship in college. Everywhere, Every single level, there should be some form of a mentorship, Even if it's not happening in your community, but I mean in schools. I think that should be something that is looked at. I mean, again, it goes back to funding, right, but if they can appoint maybe four or five mentors for these children like boys can have maybe an ex-footballer or an ex-tennis player- Do you get what I mean Like?
Speaker 1:somebody mentoring them, not only on because we think about mentorship and it's just academics. No, these people have been through stuff.
Speaker 2:No, actually, how have they?
Speaker 1:conquered. How have they gotten through certain things? You know, I always give an example of Novak right, novak's story is like it's amazing, like how he, you know, he grew up in a war-torn country and how his parents made the sacrifices. Parents, we do make sacrifices, but they, you know, it takes a village to raise a child, so there's a lot of people that were involved in his rising to where he is, to the top. So I think, you know, schools should do that. They should not only do that but also put programs in place. That is they. I would call it's more of an early intervention.
Speaker 2:They can have like a focus group in school isn't it To discuss about this? And they should have a yearly program in school whereby they will do presentations. They can do things like drama and all these things.
Speaker 1:And that's the way you teach children. You don't just physically tell them, but doing workshops and just early intervention programs where you actually tell children at whatever age they might be, because they are teaching children about sex education and everything else. Why isn't this put in the curriculum?
Speaker 2:Exactly why isn't it?
Speaker 1:why isn't it part of the education system? Do you see the figure? 47,000, 45,000, this is getting me so angry.
Speaker 2:Like this is. These numbers are outrageous.
Speaker 1:It's just they are all offenses, but it just. What worries me is that our children are growing now and they pick up different things. They're learning different things. I think I'll still insist, like parents have to do their role, the communities have to do their role, the government have to do their role, the local councils have to do their role and with the local council I'm talking. They should be things that are available for these children to engage in Programs after school. They used to be after school club that has been ripped away. They used to be a lot of like sports.
Speaker 2:But now you know, playground for most community now is outdated and not functioning.
Speaker 1:Don't get me started on the playgrounds. You know You're so even about the playgrounds, just the parks. Playgrounds should be good.
Speaker 2:way back, way back way back, Exactly I remember.
Speaker 1:I remember where I grew up my park was beautiful Like my dad's place. The park was lovely Like I think they used to have like cyclic competitions in that park as well. But I mean that you know it's the area that.
Speaker 2:I grew up. We don't have these things anymore.
Speaker 1:But I just feel like everything has been ripped away and then you expect these kids to be in their houses. They're not going to be at home, they will be on the streets.
Speaker 2:But now let's focus on ourselves as an individual, the teenagers.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:We also need to take risks with it. I mean, teenagers need to take risks with it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, of course they do, of course they do, but that's what I'm saying. We don't know the reasons. I mean, I hear different reasons why children say they are carrying knives.
Speaker 2:If you are, listening to the idea that you are a teenager or a child. You do not have any good reason to have a knife on you For what so ever reason.
Speaker 1:I think there's ways that you can you know if you're feeling threatened, if you're feeling scared for your life please speak up. Like speak up speak up talk to your parents, Then your parents can take you from there. If you feel like your parents and you know, maybe they're not able to listen. Try and speak to your teacher, Speak to somebody that you're very close to an auntie and uncle.
Speaker 2:You know, one thing I will forget to talk about is counseling. Sorry about forgetting you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's all part of. I think that also happens. That's what I'm talking about. It's all about if it's these are programs. Yeah, I understand that.
Speaker 2:They need some kind of what do you call it? Let me.
Speaker 1:That's what I'm saying to you. These programs were in place. These things have been in place before in the communities, right, but everything has been stripped away.
Speaker 2:It's been stripped, stripping these services away. It's all about budgets. No money, yeah, we can, but okay.
Speaker 1:So we say there's no funding, right. But then are we just going to leave our kids to just go off the rails? Because the thing is, let's be honest with this, yeah, there's children that offend. Obviously, you know they stab, they trigger, winning, they stab or they might use a shop instrumental, harm someone or harm themselves as well.
Speaker 1:In the communities they should be, I think they are called they were used to be called justice restorative programs, where the offenders and the families that have been offended, the victims' families or the community that has been affected, they support, they're canceling, then they get to engage with these people. The reason why you're engaging with an offender not because you're accepting what they've done, but accepting them back into community and showing them to do things differently in the long run will kill that issue of another child picking up that knife up and carrying that knife. Do you understand what I'm saying? Because you know, most of the times people commit crimes and they are held with that, with that offense, for the rest of their lives. Now, the person that's taking someone's life, they're going to spend most of their life in prison. When they do come out, finally, there's no community that's going to accept them and that's how they end up again in the system, In the system.
Speaker 1:So there has to be this. You know, there's the support, it's called justice restorative.
Speaker 2:So there should be two things in the community that our community to provide therapy and counseling Our teenagers, our children should have access to this, and parents should also take advantage of it, but right now we don't. They don't have. You see that it's not enough or you don't have a talk. It's like if you're having one therapy, a therapist or one counselor to take care of the whole of the community. How it's not possible. We can have volunteers to be.
Speaker 1:That's what I'm saying to you.
Speaker 2:These people that don't know about.
Speaker 1:Exactly. But all this stuff has to do with it starts from the top. The problem is coming from the top. If the top don't realize that the next level up needs the support to be able to help the never level down, the next level down, the hope is not going to come Right. We can scream and shout and talk and go on about it. But if, if the parents are crying to the local community and the local community is like we are so sorry, ma'am, we don't have any funding, and then the local community goes into the government and the government is like, sorry, we don't have budget for this, the budgets are going through this, that and that, Then there's no solution. We're just going to see the figures every single day, Like I not that I don't like list, watch the programs and listen to whatever's happening.
Speaker 1:But I, I now kind of selectively decided what I want to take in being me, social media, being news, be whatever. Because if you, the more we watch this, the more we become, we start saying it's becoming normal. So you're kind of accepting it, Accepting it, Okay, yeah, that's happened. Yeah, it's happening every day. Yeah, we should, we should understand that knife crime is becoming part of our lives now. It's not. It shouldn't be. It shouldn't be part of our lives. That's why I stay away from it. I don't really engage into it. I feel bad when I hear about it or another child's lost their lives, but I don't want to be watching that. I'm just looking for ways that, as an individual, I can not only help my children but other children that I come in contact with on how to look after themselves and how to speak up, on how to protect themselves. Protection does not mean carry the instrument. Protection can be seeking help, speaking out, engaging in different programs. The reality is I just wanted to say something I wanted to mention it before regarding all the programs that they are used to being communities and stuff.
Speaker 1:Now, personally, I have to pay for everything that my children engage in just to keep them away from just sitting at home watching the TV. I have to pay for swimming lessons. I have to. I mean, people will be like, oh, you just have the kids that you can, but no, no, no. These stuff were available before. These things were not as expensive as they are, because everything is now For you. Get your kids tutored, that's an expense Because, again, they need that extra support.
Speaker 1:So not all kids are intelligent. Not all kids are the. Every child is intelligent, but not every child picks up as quickly as possible. They need that extra support. So as a parent, you know we're struggling financially as it is. The economy is rough and you're paying for tuition, swimming lessons, then the child is going to lose out on their football or something. Do you know what I mean? Like there's something that they're going to miss out of. And if the communities were providing the services, then you know we, as parents, we can put our money into other ways to develop our kids. But then we are left at a loss, really, because there's not much we can do when you're having to make sure rent is paid, the bills are paid, food is in the house.
Speaker 2:What is left?
Speaker 1:What is left Then you? That means you're going to be at work all time, exactly.
Speaker 2:And so how would you have time to read the kids? When are you going?
Speaker 1:to see the kids. When are you going to be involved in it? Because, I mean, I've been at home for a while and I just feel like it's so. It's really demanding and you can't even keep up with it, because there's always something new going on. If it's not social media, it's this. If it's not, that, it's that. It's like as a parent, yeah, we can take accountability, but to what extent?
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a lot of things going on, so let's recap on the solution that we've provided, because we've spent time I lighting the solutions that we feel can take so strengthening community engagement, education and awareness.
Speaker 1:Where that can happen in the community, it can happen in schools, it can happen in hospitals. I mean any area where children accessing this, different Situations, or parents or guardians or anybody that's caring for a person. I think education, awareness is important, just to know the consequences, the what causes this conflicts, what brings up these situations. Education and awareness. They can do that in campaigns. It can be spoke, but I would say campaigns, but then a lot of people, young kids, they're not really listening out a campaign, so it has to be in there. I think structuring it into their school programs or into their school day will make a difference.
Speaker 1:Supporting, you know, different communities in a sense of like having stronger law enforcement. By that I don't mean be like you know people should not be abusing their laws. You know, as in in the past we've had statistics of you know the soap and such. It should not be abused but it should be used effectively to every single person, fairly, if they, you know, if they want to make that difference, that change in reducing knife crime right. And I also think, like Addressing the underlining issues. You know we start. We've spoken about poverty, social inequality, lack of opportunities investing in deprived, deprived areas.
Speaker 1:Yes, we've spoken about youth outreach programs.
Speaker 2:They're restorative mentoring very critical. Yeah, exactly, counseling and therapy. Yeah, we need more than the society in the community.
Speaker 1:We've also talked about collaboration with community organizations and NGOs. You know these local communities. They are doing that, what they need to do, but without the funding, without the support.
Speaker 1:It's not gonna work without spoken about parental involvement and support, engaging each and every one of us. We all have some form of accountability. I mean, I talked to my kids and speak to some of my friends kids. If I find a child is doing something like if they're being naughty and they do something and the parent is complaining, I'll be like, oh, come on, darling. I won't shout or anything, but I'll be like you know, mommy, mommy's trying to get to you. It's not that because she doesn't love you. She's trying to find a way to speak to you. But I feel like this is the way you should do. Something of. This is the way, and sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesn't. But as a community, as a nation, as a Country, we all have a part to play.
Speaker 2:What is wrong in mentor? Part of mentorship. I want to go back to mentorship. Yeah if you have enough mental in the community and you have volunteers. Let's say we have maths teacher volunteer and math English teacher volunteer right and sciences right. Yeah what stop them from everything is online now?
Speaker 1:right.
Speaker 2:The community can have these volunteers to teach these children on weekdays. It's not to have to be one person and like 20, 40, 50 student can log in right.
Speaker 1:But not only I want to be on one hour, yeah, but not only that, but I think even people that have Excuse me that have been part of that's, those situations of the, you know, people that have previously carried nine. Consequences are hard to be because they can't bring in those kind of people into schools. So because they most of them not all of them, but most of them reform their lives right. I've had different stories.
Speaker 2:People go on to do things right. So if you're not doing well, Transformed your life.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry, I can't even say my words when you you find a way to transform your life. It didn't happen with magic, right. There's a lot of things have happened for you in order for you to transform. And we are not saying you guys, the young, these young kids are carrying nicer, but they're not bad. There's reasons as to why these situations are causing them to carry this knife. So until we address those issues, we're going to be talking about this. For years. I remember now's younger knife crime was a thing. I'm now in my late, my early 30s. Knife crime is a thing. It's not getting any better, it's getting worse.
Speaker 2:It's getting worse now at one point was getting better. But, now it's going is skyrocketing again. I know we've talked a lot about knife crime. We know we cannot finish it. Remember that you can always reach out to your community, and I also think that community policing something that has stopped as well. Yeah, that needs to be we need to go back to the basis.
Speaker 2:It is important in our community to have people to volunteer as community policing, because then we can identify some, some teenagers that you can see they are constantly getting into trouble and they can feel tight Because we know each other in the community and they can use the technology that's available to them as well in the communities to Be able to tackle this down.
Speaker 1:Because you would, they will appear. You don't tell me that this just magically happens. If we all have, if our communities, as the street lights, everything is lit properly and they've got the right you know Technology around, they will be able to crack down on this. They these ways. That needs to be. Let's just not be, you know crying and let's not be holding. You know like wakes for these people, like these young children, that you know every child that dies, that's a generation has gone, Right yeah it's a generation lost.
Speaker 1:Yeah you know, you don't know what. That child that you know, that girl that lost her life in Croydon you don't know where she was gonna be in her life.
Speaker 2:What. The pain of the parent, the pain of the family, and I could not even stop like I was, just like I just can't. It's not an isolated situation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's a lot of family who have been in this situation, so and the thing is that they're going to live like this for the rest of their life.
Speaker 2:This is the pain that they're going to carry for the rest of their lives.
Speaker 1:And whenever, like, something happens in the news and they hear, or another child has been stabbed, trigger warning it will bring back that pain. It will bring because you, like I know, I've, you know grief is grief, but a loss is different, it's a different thing. You know there's grief and there's loss. They too are two different things. You grieving, yes, you agree, but a loss you cannot get back, yeah no, no, no all right, this is this is the THH podcast on this podcast.
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Speaker 2:We're signing off right now and I say what until?
Speaker 1:next time. Stay blessed, guys, stay blessed.