Everton schools promote anti gun and knife crime through drama

Published by Jon Land for Regenda Housing Group in Housing and also in Education

Against a backdrop of a sharp rise in gun and knife crime incidents in youth society, four schools in the Everton area of Liverpool have decided to face the problem head on and are using a series of drama workshops to raise awareness and tackle issues around gun and knife crime with their year 6 students.

The workshops, funded by the Regenda Group and Liverpool Housing Trust (LHT), will explore the theme of gun and knife crime, looking at motivations and consequences, both moral and legal.

Esther Doolan, Regenda Project Officer explained; “Maritime Housing, part of Regenda, is one of the major landlords in this area of Everton. As part of our Neighbourhood Plans which aim to improve our residents living environment, we wanted to provide a project that our young residents could benefit from; so they feel safer in their homes and communities. We think equipping them with the knowledge and understanding this anti gun and knife crime project brings, might be a step towards helping to stem the increase of crimes of this type.”

Due to the sensitive nature of the subject being explored, rather than a script being created that the children perform, the drama workshops allow the young people to devise and develop their own performances – allowing them creative input into the form, structure and content of the performance. This would mean that 4 different performances would be created – one in each school.
The initial concept for the piece uses the popularity of computer games, in particular computer games which encourage shooting and killing, as the basis for the project and the performance. This starting concept is aimed at engaging both the boys in the group with the subject matter and the girls with a visually interesting performance with dance/movement work.

The students are asked to reflect their experiences and ideas into the performance and draw in issues of friendship, transition and change, peer pressure and, potentially, drugs and alcohol.

They also discuss and include what constitutes an offensive weapon, what the legal consequences for adults and young people are in participating in gun and knife crime and discover the scale of the number of gun/knife related deaths and injuries.

The sessions are delivered over three days and are aimed at altering the children’s perceptions of this crucial topic. They cumulate in a performance to an audience made up of parents, teachers and year 5 students. It is hoped that this performance will provoke meaningful discussion, debate and sharing of ideas with family members or peer groups where previously this topic may have been taboo or glamorised.

Paul Dickson, Director of Regeneration at the Regenda Group said; “We are hoping to secure further funding to enable us to roll out these sessions to more schools across the Merseyside area so that a good proportion our younger residents in this region can benefit.”

ENDS