Support the Oldies Bike Ride for Fighting Knife Crime London.
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By Mohammed Wakeel Malik
Introduction
Knife crime continues to affect communities across the United Kingdom, causing harm and fear in everyday life. While London often dominates headlines, the problem extends beyond the capital. Towns and cities across the country are dealing with its devastating consequences and Sheffield is no exception. In South Yorkshire, communities are uniting to tackle this issue, working tirelessly to restore hope and create safer environments for young people.
The urgency of these efforts is clear. In the 12 months to June 2025, England and Wales recorded 51,527 knife-enabled offences, according to the Office for National Statistics; a figure that, despite a 5% decrease from the previous year, remains alarmingly high36. Behind these numbers are young lives at risk: NHS data show that nearly 13% of hospital admissions for sharp-object assaults involved under-18s, amounting to about 3,460 cases37.
Sheffield reflects this national challenge. The Home Office reports 15,028 knife-enabled robberies across seven high-risk forces (including South Yorkshire), down 6% year-on-year38. Yet, South Yorkshire Police recorded 560 knife robberies in June 2025 alone, alongside a 32% rise in youth violent arrests since 2020, as noted by the Youth Justice board39. These figures highlight why community efforts must go beyond policing and offer early intervention and sustained support for young people.
Grassroots initiatives and collaborative programs aim to inspire communities, strengthen relationships, and provide positive alternatives to violence. They focus on building trust, resilience, and opportunities that steer young people away from harmful choices. By promoting education, empowerment and community cohesion, these actions pave the way toward lasting change. To understand how this vision translates into action, we turn to the workshops that empower young people at the heart of these communities.
Community workshops: Educating and empowering youth
Initiatives like ‘One Knife, Many Lives’, hosted by Firvale Community Hub, brings together young people aged 11-16 to learn about the dangers of knife crime from both practical and spiritual perspectives40. These workshops are not just lectures, they are interactive, engaging, and designed to make young people feel heard and supported. The sessions create safe spaces where young children can openly discuss issues such as peer pressure, conflict resolution, and the real-life consequences of carrying a knife. This openness helps dispel myths around knife carrying and encourages honest conversations about why some young people feel compelled to carry weapons.
Campaigners like Anthony Olaseinde, from Always an Alternative41, share powerful lived experiences, offering practical safety strategies and highlighting the long-term impact of violent choices. His approach resonates because it combines realism with hope, showing that change is possible. Alongside him, Imam Amar Hafiz, from Jamia Al-Karam42, introduces ethical and faith-based principles that emphasise the sanctity of life, reinforcing moral responsibility, and community values.
To make the experience rewarding, the hub provides a certificate of completion, which not only recognises achievement but also motivates continued engagement. These certificates serve as a reminder of the commitment to positive change and can even enhance confidence and self-worth among participants. Beyond these sessions themselves, the workshops often include role-playing activities, group discussions, and scenario-based exercises that allow young people to practice decision-making in challenging situations. This hands-on approach ensures that lessons are not just theoretical but applicable to real-life contexts.
While these workshops are transformative, they represent only one part of a much larger effort to address knife crime.
Beyond awareness: Year-round support
Beyond these workshops, the Firvale Community Hub runs year-round programmes that focus on personal development, leadership skills, and trauma-informed support for those affected by violence43. These programmes provide continuity, ensuring that young people have access to guidance and resources beyond short-term interventions. They offer one-to-one and group therapy sessions, substance misuse education, and family outreach to address the root causes of youth crime. This holistic approach recognises that knife crime is often linked to deeper issues such as poverty, social isolation, and lack of opportunity. By tackling these underlying factors, the Hub aims to create lasting change rather than short-term fixes.
Partnerships with schools and parents play a crucial role in this strategy. By integrating preventative education into classrooms and homes, the Hub ensures that messages about safety and resilience reach young people in environments where they feel secure. Teachers and parents are equipped with practical tools to identify early warning signs and intervene before problems escalate.
The Hub’s approach combines innovative solutions such as anonymous reporting systems with community cohesion projects that foster trust and collaboration. These initiatives give young people positive alternatives to risky behaviours and help them build strong support networks. Activities like leadership training, volunteering opportunities, and creative projects empower participants to see themselves as representatives of change within their communities. These efforts aim to steer children away from environments that expose them to violence and empower them to make safer choices for their future. The goal is not just to prevent crime but to raise confident, resilient individuals who can succeed in society. To truly increase these grassroot efforts, collaboration at a larger scale is essential. The following section highlights how united campaigns and partnerships across Sheffield are transforming individual actions into a powerful collective movement against knife crime.
Community-scale initiatives & collaboration
In January 2025, the Knives Take Lives campaign, launched by South Yorkshire Police in collaboration with The Sheffield College, used student-led creative media and real-life storytelling to correct knife carrying myths and resonate with young audiences44. Using student-led creative media, the campaign featured short films and animations based on real-life stories, including a fatal stabbing case in Doncaster. Students helped script and voice the content, making it relatable for young audiences. This initiative also included talks from victims’ families and officers, aiming to show that carrying a knife doesn’t offer protection, it destroys lives. By combining powerful stories with practical advice, the initiative opened doors for honest conversations among young people, families and communities, fostering trust and awareness.
In May 2025, Operation Sceptre ran across Sheffield with community-focused actions such as amnesty bins, school workshops and patrols45. It engaged charities like Always an Alternative to bring knife awareness into neighbourhoods and schools. The initiative included amnesty bins placed in key locations to encourage safe disposal of knives, school-based workshops where officers and youth workers discussed the dangers of carrying weapons and high visibility patrols to reassure residents. These efforts aimed not only to reduce knife possession but also to build trust between young people and local authorities, creating safer spaces, and stronger community ties. Charities like Always an Alternative played a vital role in delivering these messages directly into neighbourhoods and schools, ensuring that prevention reached those most at risk.
These collaborative campaigns demonstrate that united action can make a real difference. They show how creative engagement, community partnerships and practical measures can challenge harmful traditions and build trust. Yet, they also reveal that short-term efforts alone cannot solve a problem as complex as knife crime. To truly protect young lives and strengthen communities, these initiatives must be supported by consistent investment and long-term strategies that prioritise prevention and resilience. Achieving this requires consistent funding and long-term investment.
Funding: The key to sustaining progress
The long-term success of community-led initiatives is threatened by a persistent challenge: financial insecurity. Many grassroots organisations operate on limited budgets, relying heavily on short-term grants or donations to sustain their work. Without consistent funding, these vital programmes risk being reduced in size or disappearing altogether; undermining the progress they strive to achieve.
Stable investment allows communities to implement proven solutions. Measures such as improved street lighting, CCTV in public spaces, secure youth facilities, and anonymous reporting systems can significantly enhance safety. Beyond this, businesses can sponsor anti-violence projects and places of worship can strengthen outreach efforts46. Even simple actions such as uplifting neglected neighbourhoods or training volunteers for street patrols can make a tangible difference. However, none of these strategies are possible without adequate resources. Communities are ready to act, now they need the funding to match their determination.
As a registered charity, Firvale Community Hub depends on government grants and public donations to sustain its work. This financial support is critical to delivering youth engagement programmes, safe spaces and trauma-informed services that address the root causes of violence. Reliable funding enables the hub to plan long-term initiatives, maintain stability in support networks and respond effectively to emerging community needs, ensuring that progress against knife crime is not only achieved but preserved.
While funding provides the foundation, partnerships between local authorities, schools, and grassroot organisations increase impact. The following section explores how community-scale initiatives and joint campaigns are turning ideas into action across Sheffield.
Why prevention pays
Investing now, saves money in the long run. A single significant knife crime incident can cost more than £100,000, including police response, legal costs, and NHS treatment47. These costs do not even account for the emotional toll on families and communities or the long-term impact on public confidence and safety. In contrast, youth programs often cost less than £5,000 per participant, yet their benefits extend far beyond financial savings. These initiatives provide education, mentorship, and safe spaces that help young people build resilience and make positive choices. By addressing root causes such as peer pressure, lack of opportunities, and social isolation, these programs reduce the likelihood of future violence and create stronger, healthier communities.
Supporting these efforts today means reducing the burden on emergency services, protecting young lives and fostering environments where young people can thrive and achieve stability and long-term security. Ultimately, these savings reinforce the case for sustained investment and momentum. Prevention is not only a moral requirement, but it is a practical, cost-effective strategy that benefits society.
This economic and social rationale leads us to the next question; how can communities turn short-term progress into lasting change?
Turning momentum into lasting change
Sheffield’s fight against knife crime shows what communities can achieve when they unite. From student-led campaigns and grassroots workshops to partnerships with local businesses and faith groups, these efforts have created hope and alternatives for young people who might otherwise be drawn to knife violence.
However, most initiatives rely on short-term grants, leaving them vulnerable to disruption. Stable, statutory funding is essential. It enables organisations to train volunteers, nurture youth leaderships, and maintain stability in support services. Every pound spent on prevention saves thousands in policing, legal costs, and NHS treatment, while protecting lives and strengthening communities48.
Knife crime is not just a policing issue it is a societal challenge. Businesses, local authorities, and residents must work together to secure long-term resources. By investing today, we build a future where young people thrive in safe environments and communities stand united against violence.
Conclusion
Knife crime remains one of the most pressing challenges facing communities across the UK. Sheffield’s example proves that grassroots action, collaboration and sustained investment can transform fear into hope and vulnerability into resilience. The fight against knife crime is not won by enforcement alone, it requires education, empowerment and unity. By committing to long-term solutions today, we can create a safer tomorrow for generations to come.
Further Reading
[36] Ben Kinsella Trust, ‘Knife Crime Statistics’ https://benkinsella.org.uk/knife-crime-statistics accessed 12 November 2025
[37] South Yorkshire Violence Reduction Unit, ‘South Yorkshire Knife Crime Approach’ https://southyorkshireviolencereductionunit.com/app/uploads/2025/02/South-Yorkshire-Knife-Crime-Approach_FINAL.pdf accessed 29 November 2025.
[38] Doncaster Free Press, ‘This is How Much South Yorkshire Knife Robberies Have Fallen After Government Targets High-Risk Areas’ https://www.doncasterfreepress.co.uk/news/crime/this-is-how-much-south-yorkshire-knife-robberies-have-fallen-by-after-government-targets-high-risk-areas-5254565 accessed 22 October 2025.
[39] Youth Justice Resource Hub, Knife Crime Evidence and insights Pack (Feb 2025) https://yjresourcehub.uk/ourwork.knifecrimeevidenceinsights_feb25/ accessed 22 October 2025
[40] Firvale Community Hub, ‘One Knife, Many Lives: Empowering Sheffield Youth to Tackle Knife Crime’ https://firvalecommunityhub.org.uk/one-knife-many-lives-empowering-sheffield-youth-to-tackle-knife-crime/ accessed 15 October 2025.
[41] Always an Alternative, ‘Always an Alternative’ https://alwaysanalternative.org.uk accessed 10 December 2025.
[42] Jamia Al‑Karam, ‘Al‑Karam’ https://www.alkaram.org accessed 10 December 2025.
[43] Firvale Community Hub, ‘One Knife, Many Lives: Empowering Sheffield Youth to Tackle Knife Crime’https://firvalecommunityhub.org.uk/one-knife-many-lives-empowering-sheffield-youth-to-tackle-knife-crime/ accessed 15 October 2025.
[44] The Tab, ‘South Yorkshire Police Launch Campaign to Combat Youth Knife Crime’ https://thetab.com/2025/01/31/south-yorkshire-police-launch-campaign-to-combat-youth-knife-crime accessed 5 November 2025.
[45] ShefNews, ‘South Yorkshire Police Start Action Week for Tackling Knife Crime’ https://shefnews.co.uk/index.php/2025/05/22/south-yorkshire-police-start-action-week-for-tackling-knife-crime/accessed 19 November 2025.
[46] West Midlands Police & Crime Commissioner, ‘“Brilliant” My Community Fund Back for 2025 as PCC Gives Local Projects £330,000 to Help Reduce Crime’ https://www.westmidlands-pcc.gov.uk/brilliant-my-community-fund-back-for-2025-as-pcc-gives-community-groups-330000-to-help-reduce-crime/ accessed 5 November 2025.
[47] South Yorkshire Violence Reduction Unit, ‘South Yorkshire Knife Crime Approach’
https://southyorkshireviolencereductionunit.com/app/uploads/2025/02/South-Yorkshire-Knife-Crime-Approach_FINAL.pdf accessed 29 October 2025.
[48] HM Treasury, Spending Review 2025 (CP 1336, 2025) https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/spending-review-2025-document/spending-review-2025-html accessed 22 October 2025.
