I’ve come a long way since my days as a teenager: wrapped up in Hackney’s gang culture with some of my boyhood mates. I was one of the lucky ones, though, who didn’t get in too deep and got out while I still could. I now use my life experiences, both from the streets and my previous youth support roles, to help students at the London based college I now work at through my daily interactions with them and the development programmes I build for them.

The lure of gang life

For many young boys, like me and my mates when we were younger, gang life is just a route to getting the things you want at that age – money, respect, things to do, and women. I first joined a gang due to what I call ‘follow fashion’ – something that still dictates many of the choices, both good and bad, young people make. Like many of the kids I speak with at my college, you just want to fit in and not be left alone. So, the things our mates do have a massive influence.

As young boys, most of us are fixated on the short-term gains in life, especially in poorer areas where there aren’t many ways to relieve tension: it’s pretty much just women and/or fighting. For us back then, a lack of opportunities and how they were presented to us played a big part in our poor decisions. So, too, did losing the decent male mentors that we had at my secondary school – the PE teachers who understood us. Once we left, their positive influence did too.

The escalation of violence: A deadly change in gang culture

20 years ago, gang violence was not on the scale that it is now. Stabbings have become more brutal and deadly than ever. If we had an issue back then, by default it would be a fist fight. Sometimes, I saw others escalate it with small pocketknives drawn, typically using it in places that weren’t deadly. The weapons and intent nowadays are on a whole different level – huge zombie knives, machetes, and swords are being carried by so many more kids. Carrying a weapon is now seen to be ‘cool’, a fashion statement. Many kids are desensitised to their existence, size, and frequency of use. Some students I speak with would rather look cool and feel protected than face the alternatives of no protection – even if that means doing a few years in prison for having it (most know they’d serve closer to 12-18 months in reality).

Since my mates and I joined that life at the age of 15, many of them got involved with serious drug dealing and stabbings. While I got out of that life in my late teens, thanks to my girlfriend at the time, most of them didn’t. Up until I was aged around 27, I had seen one or two friends die each year – I’ve lost well over a dozen friends over this time. Crazy when I put it bluntly like that.

Tackling youth knife crime and gang culture

During my final months in the gang, I still wanted an education, but the priority was survival, so I was repeatedly kicked out of colleges across Hackney. For me, a key issue at colleges – which still exists within most to this day – is that students feel that teachers don’t understand. Mine came from a whole different area, so they didn’t understand gang culture and the constant threat and allure that street life presents. Their priority centred on numbers passing the course, so it was obvious some of them didn’t care about us as individuals. Youths pick up on this!

The Struggles of Today’s Students

I trained to become a probation officer at first but left after just two years, as there was very little effective rehabilitation taking place – youths weren’t taught anything new that would help them in life, and they just responded badly to the lack of staff care and engagement. Working at a PRU, just after this, I soon realised most kids there were just like me when I was their age - getting kicked from place to place. However, the youth workers at the PRU were more effective than staff at my last job. Not only did they clearly care more, but they also understood gang culture and county lines exploitation. Youth were treated as individuals with unique needs.

It made me realise that I really wanted to work in colleges with troubled kids, who were just like I was – giving something back to my old community. I could take all these lessons I had learned, and mistakes I had seen myself and others make, to better support them.

The Need for Life Skills Education

Honestly, I fear for a lot of the students who come into our college. Many of them do not know how to be streetwise and have a lack of perspective on what they can offer their community. They aren’t taught how to deal with conflict, how to think about the impact of their actions and the long-term consequences on themselves and others. Generally, they know very little about key life skills, that the education sector often overlooks offering, like the basics of banking, how to earn a legitimate income, and the value of saving. They aren’t given awareness of so many career paths and even how to develop basic life skills that many of our previous generations had: in-person communication, contributing to the community, and even spotting danger.

Part of the problem with carrying dangerous weapons is that youths are putting themselves in a position where, in a split second, they can make a mistake of a lifetime. They don’t know what impact it will have on the rest of their lives and on the community.

The education sector needs to drastically increase the life skills offered to youth, along with more consistency to where and when they are delivered. Some colleges like mine do have great people coming in to support from time to time, but programmes need to reach so many more youths across a given local community – offering more relevant skills and opportunities, with coordinated guidance on how to progress passions and talents onto the next steps.

Building a productive future: The need for community collaboration

We need to instil two things: their perceived self-worth and a sense of being part of a productive community – that warm feeling you get when helping someone and seeing their gratitude getting recognition and rewards for acts where parents can be proud. For many students, parents only meet with teachers when something bad happens. A sad reality.

I am excited to see the ‘Who’s Next?’ Campaign coalition soon start to deliver these types of skills and opportunities to students, working simultaneously with schools and colleges within a targeted London area, under a coordinated community-driven programme. I hope my college’s students will soon be able to benefit from it too, because a fresh approach is genuinely needed across our streets and communities.