On Sunday 8th September West Croydon Seventh-day Adventist Church took part in the Thornton Heath Festival in the Borough of Croydon. We had two platforms: Health Expo 2019 and; Anti-Knife Crime Campaign – an early intervention/prevention strategy. An on-the-spot report follows:
“Today’s event at Thornton Heath festival was a great turn out. Courtesy of West Croydon SDA church who engaged the local community with a health & Wellbeing expo, Real Talk Mentors also had the privilege to share our commitment to providing solutions and strategies to intervene and prevent the escalation of knife crime and violence.
The information was well received by people from diverse groups of people who also aired their views and reservations about this public health crisis. Young people also approached us expressing interest and keenness to become peer mentors so that mindsets could be motivated towards the teach one, reach one ethos. Here we witnessed the achievement of a main goal in our expected outcomes as a result of our attendance and participation.
It was also a great opportunity to network with other youth organisations and key members of Croydon council with a view to collaborate in the future to stage platforms to deliver early intervention/prevention strategies to alleviate anti-social behaviour, and unlock the true potential of young people by meeting them at their point of need.”
Members of Croydon (Selhurst) SDA and Pollards Hill SDA churches were also in attendance and participated in getting these urgent messages out to the public.
As can be seen in the pictures of the event, Croydon’s Mayor also stopped by and conducted a television interview from our stands.
