Young people discuss solutions to violence and poverty as police cuts announced

By Gary Trowsdale, Hope Collective and Damilola Taylor Trust legacy Director 

We staged our 36th Hope Hack across the UK when our team converged on the new Oasis Village youth hub in Tulse Hill on Monday. 

Last year we celebrated Damilola Taylor’s birthday with a Hope Hack in Peckham and this year we moved across South London.

It’s a fantastic new venue for supporting young people and grass roots community organisations and we had more than 100 young people attend from local schools, youth charities and social housing support groups.

After we launched the Hope Collective in 2000 as the 20th anniversary legacy campaign for Damilola Taylor, we were dealt a cruel blow by COVID.

But, we discovered online meeting tools which we used to great effect.

By the time we got to mid 2021 and got the all clear to start organising events again, the Hope Collective was up and running with the most amazing team drawn from National Citizen Service (NCS) UK Youth, Rio Ferdinand Foundation. The Hope Hack was born.

A youth empowerment event that creates a safe space for young people to have honest candid discussions about what a fairer society looks like. A society where poor communities are levelled up and equality applies to each and every young person.

Having lost Richard Taylor OBE, earlier this year, this was an especially poignant time for me as we were very close. He was so thrilled when the Government granted Damilola’s birthday as a national day of Hope.

In our very last conversation Richard’s wish for the 25th anniversary next year was that we use the opportunity to try and tackle the mistrust issue between police and young people, especially the black community. 

Richard was always a big believer in policing and his last public engagement last year was when he joined commissioner Sir Mark Rowley at the Damilola Centre in Peckham to launch the new police action plan.

Richard believed the only way to truly have an impact in stopping young people carrying knives out of fear was through getting more police into communities in safer neighbourhood teams, building up trust and creating relationships with young people and their community guardians, parents, teachers, youth workers etc.

With mistrust being identified as a grooming tactic by criminals exploiting vulnerable communities, I fully back this theory to the hilt.

This week in Tulse Hill we asked young people to “Reimagine their communities” and a range of contributing societal factors around safety were discussed in work groups including Mental Health, Education, Housing, Environment and policing.

We were delighted to have Sir Mark meet the young people and hear their ideas on policing at the event finale.

We had a fantastic array of guest speakers and performers involved in the day as well and the keynote inspirational talk was given by 27-year-old Lambeth Mayor John Paul Ennis and Councillor Muhammad Hashi.

Patrick Hutchinson – Black Lives Matter hero – came along and all the young people involved got signed copies of his book “Everyone against racism”.

Jermaine Wong, who sadly lost his son to knife crime in Brixton a year ago, uses spoken word as a mentoring tool to dissuade young people away from violence. He drafted a special poem by listening to the young people in the workshops which he then recited at the end of the event.

I am on Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s knife crime task force and he has pledged to reduce knife crime by 50 per cent in ten years.

I think we can reduce it significantly and far quicker than that if we can get the police visible in safer neighbourhood community policing units again and tackle head on the mistrust by winning back hearts and minds.

No police officer wants to tell a mother her child’s not coming home after all.

We will see a piece of art work unveiled outside Peckham library next year to commemorate the 25th anniversary. 

In my last conversation with Richard we spoke about how, sadly, things had gotten so much worse. Richard agreed that we should emphasise that the 25th anniversary memorial should honour every child lost to violence over this period and that’s what we are going to do.

Damilola and Richard’s legacy of hope lives on.

Pictured top: Young people at the Hope Hack in Oasis Village youth hub, Tulse Hill, on Monday (Picture: Gary Trowsdale)