Story and photos by Alan Hancock
On Saturday 8th February, representatives from Burngreave, Patrick Meleady, Alan Hancock and Diane Johnson attended the first Youth Conference organised by the Theresa Cave of the Chris Cave Foundation.
Theresa’s son, Chris, was stabbed to death in 2003. Since then she has dedicated her own life to preventing and deterring young people from carrying a knife or a gun or committing violent crime in any shape or form. The remarkable conference was staged at the Tuned-In Centre in Redcar.
Although the conference had the theme of young people and knife crime, it covered many aspects of what is affecting the lives of young people today.
Alan was called upon to address the conference along with the Cleveland Police and Crime Commissioner, Barry Coppinger. Other guests spoke to the conference and ran four fascinating workshops. Other speakers included Quinton Green (poet and spoken word artist), Julian Lawrence (comic artist), John Robert Atkins (martial arts expert) and a great session was delivered by paramedics.
‘Spoken Word’ is basically rhyming poetry that can be used to emphasise many themes, in this instance, for example “You don’t need a gun to have fun”, “Don’t use a knife, save a life”
Alan said:
“We all gained a great deal today. Having participated in every workshop, we came away with numerous new ideas that can be utilised at the Adventure Playground. Theresa Cave has always been a great supporter of the playground and it was wonderful that we could attend and maintain this relationship”.
