Knife Crime Video Project: The Three Dares
Introduction
In Summer 2022, people in the North West Chilterns Community Board decided to run a knife crime video project to help prevent young people from getting involved in knife crime.
Community Boards bring the council, groups, organisations and local people together. Their aim is to look at local issues and find ways of improving them together. The North West Chiltern Community Board brings people together from areas such as Princes Risborough, Ellesborough and Stokenchurch.
Junior Filmmakers is an organisation based in Milton Keynes. They specialise in running fun film projects with young people to address issues, recognising that young people listen to other young people.
In Summer 2022, the North West Chilterns Community Board gave Junior Filmmakers money to run a video project with local young people.
How did we listen, act and respond?
Listen
Junior Filmmakers planned a project to get young people from the North West Chilterns area involved in creating videos that share the dangers of getting involved in knife crime. They promoted the project with local schools, groups and parents.
54 young people aged 8 – 17 from Risborough and the surrounding areas attended the Junior Filmmakers 5-day film camp. They developed the plan for the videos, including scripts, scenery and the key messages to include. Then they acted out the scenes and filmed them.
Act
Junior Filmmakers then produced the videos and published them online! You can watch the videos and find more information on the project on the Knives Ruin Lives NWC website.
Go to the Knives Ruin Lives NWC website
Once the videos were made, Junior Filmmakers and North West Chilterns Community Board shared the videos widely with schools and other organisations to raise awareness of the project and the young participants’ messages around the danger of knife crime.
Respond
Junior Filmmakers kept the young people who took part in the project updated as the films were produced and sent them the link to the webpage with the videos on once it was ready.
Feedback
“As a school careers adviser, it was amazing to see opportunities like this for local young people – especially as Buckinghamshire is such a centre for the UK film industry. The opportunity to see all the different skills and roles involved was really great, and very important for inspiring young people about creative jobs out there in a strong growth sector.”
– Local school careers adviser and parent of one of the young people who took part
“Filmmaking is a powerful tool for inspiring change of behaviour but we also understand that young people tend to take advise from each other rather than from authority figures. In this regard Junior Filmmakers places the power of filmmaking in the hands of young people so that they can become storytellers, ambassadors and change makers for their peers.”
– Nana Oguntola, Junior Filmmakers