Anti-knife crime t-shirts launched

8:00am Thursday 21st August 2008

A TEENAGER is using his experience of growing up on an estate in south London to launch a T-shirt campaign against knife violence on the streets of Edmonton.

Alex Rose, 19, of Mitcham, has joined forced with Edmonton-based businesswoman and community worker Sarah Edoo after they met at an awards ceremony organised by the Anne Frank Foundation.

While Ms Edoo has been credited with turning people’s lives around as a mentor in Holloway prison and employer of ex-offenders, Mr Rose has been recognised as a wonderful role model.

Unlike Ms Edoo, who is 31 and a mother-of-three, Mr Rose is only 19, doing his A levels and working in a part-time job while also running his ‘STOP’ T-shirt campaign.

His aim is to spread a positive message in a visible way – that young people don’t find knife and gun crime acceptable.

The campaign was launched after he approached a printing company and, with £700 worth of savings, got his first print run.

His idea was inspired following the fatal stabbing of friend Eugene Attram in 2006 at the hands of a gang.

He said: “When Eugene died, this is when it really hit me, the reality of seeing people carrying knives.

“That is when it dawned on me that this is taking lives.

“I always think every guy has to have their own personal revelation. And older people who have been in prison five times have told me they wish that they had done things differently when they were young.

“With what I have been doing, I have been trying to point out to people early that the way they act now can dramatically hinder events in their life.

“I used to roll with people in gangs and get involved in that activity. I sat there and watched people robbing other people. But I would do my homework first and then come out. I knew right from wrong.

“I knew parents who would be in the front room while their kids were next door sleeping with a stranger.

“There were sometimes needles lying around in the front room. Shouting and arguments was a regular occurrence.”

Mr Rose is now shifting around 400 T-shirts a month, and Ms Edoo and her 12-year-old son Raheem will help distribute them, while the two are already planning to work together on a talent show next month.

“I am doing this for the same reason that Sarah is,” Mr Rose said. “I don’t want to be one of those kids that didn’t stop things.

“People really don’t like what is going on in the community – I think everyone should give their ten per cent.

“When you see olders driving in nice cars saying ‘we can give you cars and money’, you need to arm yourself mentally to survive.

“Parents need to educate their children they have much more to contend with than when they were kids. There is not a lot of stuff to do.”

* To contact Alex email rosesw17@aol.com, and to buy a t-shirt email sarah.bibi@hotmail.com or phone 07723 356593.