London Mayor Launches Campaign Against Knife Crime

On November 15, Photofusion hosted the launch of the Mayor of London’s campaign against knife crime. We were joined by The Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, grime artist Yungen, MC Bossman Birdie, urban poet Hussain Manawer, and photographer Tom Sloan.

London Needs You Alive, which implores young people not to carry knives, aims to positively influence young Londoners by highlighting how valuable they are to London, to their families, and to their friends. This message resonated with us. Over the past 25 years, we have worked with hundreds of young people through our Community Outreach Programme. Regardless of how these young people come to Photofusion, be it through Lambeth Youth Offending Services, local schools or through our summer school programme, they all have one thing in common; namely, they are brimming with creative potential. This is always our starting point with our young people – you are valuable, you have potential, you can achieve great things.

The Mayor explained: “London is the best city in the world, full of opportunity, and one of the safest. But too many of our young people are being senselessly lost to knife crime. It has to stop. “We can’t solve the problem by police enforcement alone, we need to get the message across that our young Londoners are too valuable to risk their lives by carrying a knife. They are our future musicians, artists, sportsmen and women, comedians, scientists, politicians, entrepreneurs and role models. We need them.”

Photofusion was approached several months ago and asked to contribute to this project. Two of our young photographers were given the opportunity to work with Tom Sloan to create images for the campaign. One of the young photographers, sixteen-year-old Kourosh Simpkins, was on hand to document the visit to Photofusion, during which the Mayor joined ten young people from Evelyn Grace Academy for a creative workshop.

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said: