Knife crime awareness week football tournament in Dagenham

Sports are part of a nationwide campaign used by Barking and Dagenham Council to get eight schools involved in a football tournament.

The council is working with West Ham United Foundation and the BoxUp Crime charity’s hub in Dagenham to highlight “the devastation that knife crime causes families”.

The partnership put on the tournament at Dagenham’s Bobby Moore sports hub on Tuesday (May 20), for 15-year-olds from the eight schools.

“We use football to create safe spaces and show young people positive pathways,” West Ham Foundation’s Joseph Lyons said. “We work with schools, local councils and services to address violence and exploitation. This tournament is part of that mission.”  

The winning team was Riverside School in Barking which won a trophy, while all those taking part also received medals.

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The campaign up and down the country was started by the Ben Kinsella Trust to highlight knife crime and the devastation it causes families.

Patrick Green, chief executive of the trust, said: “Knife crime is preventable with efforts by people and organisations who are making a difference.

“This tournament showed the power of coming together through sport to prevent violence before it starts.”

The trust was set up after 16-year-old Ben Kinsella — younger brother of TV’s Brooke Kinsella from EastEnders — died in a knife attack at Holloway in north London on his way home from school in 2008.

The young people in Tuesday’s tournament also had talks from role models like Stephen Addison, founder of Box Up Crime that he set up in 2013 after experiencing losing friends to gang violence and crime.

His organisation tackles social issues for those vulnerable to crime by getting them off the streets and into the boxing ring.

It opened its latest hub in Barking in 2020 to stop teenagers falling victim to violence “or ending up behind bars”.