At a talent show in London, many young people have stories about knife violence – and strong views on how to tackle it

One at a time, the children in the room stand up and perform in front of their peers and relatives – a song from Disney’s Frozen, a monologue from a play, a joke worthy of a Christmas cracker – while audience members observe a respectful quiet.

Along with a passion for performing arts, the youngsters assembled for the talent show at Croydon’s BME Forum have something else in common: in one way or another their lives have been touched by knife crime.

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This isn’t the reason they have been brought together – the event has been organised by the youth group Music Relief Foundation (MRF), which is about using creativity to unleash young people’s potential. It is an unfortunate reality that if you’re a teenager in London, you or someone you know will have a story to tell about knife violence.

As well as stories of stabbings, the children all have strong views on how the problem – branded an epidemic by some – could be tackled.

After singing a touching rendition of Killing Me Softly, Nia Shaw, 18, tells the Guardian she knows the prime suspect in the killing of Kyall Parnell, a 17-year-old stabbed in Tulse Hill on New Year’s Eve. The 16-year-old boy, who has been arrested, lives two minutes from her home. “It happens all the time but you never expect it when it’s someone you know,” she says. “I didn’t think of him as someone who would carry a knife or any weapon. It now just feels so close to home.”

Parnell was one of four young people stabbed to death in the space of 15 hours over the new year period. The spate of unconnected stabbings across London brought the issue of knife crime back into focus once again. The story is fast becoming stuck on repeat.

Nia, who lives in Tulse Hill and attends Richmond-upon-Thames college, says she feels unnerved by the recent violence. “I feel like these stabbings didn’t really even have a target, they’re just innocent people getting caught up in them.”

“I think poverty is a factor,” she adds. She thinks punishment for knife crimes could be more severe. “It keeps on happening. The thought of punishment should stop you from making that mistake.”

She and many of her friends at MRF advocate youth clubs as a resource to help young people make better use of their time. But Nia says these clubs cannot just be a room in a community centre with the door left open for teenagers to come and go. “The club needs to be more than a space or a room,” she says. “It needs to have actual facilities and provide activities for young people to do.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Javan Roberts, 15, wrote a song about the death of a former schoolfriend. Photograph: Teri Pengilley/The Guardian

Javan Roberts, 15, attends the famous Brit School in Croydon, whose alumni include Adele and Amy Winehouse. At his previous school, Javan knew Jermaine Goupall, who died aged 15 after he was stabbed in the leg in in Thornton Heath last year. Javan learned of his former friend’s death through social media.

“It was so instant and unexpected,” he says. “I just clicked on Snapchat and I hear someone I knew had died. I heard about it and wrote a song.” And the message? “Its chorus went: ‘Cold blood, the brothers have no love.’”

Javan says he sees and hears about knife violence on an almost daily basis. “It’s repeated a lot,” he said. “You hear of boys trying to prove themselves, sometimes they’re trying to protect themselves.” But he is not intimidated. “I don’t feel scared. Some people are quite silly in the way they present themselves. I don’t need to act like a badman or a roadman because that’s not who I am.”

Kai Henderson, 13, was friends with Michael Jonas, a 17-year-old stabbed in Betts Park, Anerley, in south London last year. “He was stabbed a week after I last saw him,” he says. “That made me feel scared – if I went to that park it could be me. I’m still kind of scared of going back.”

Kai, who attends Orchard Park High in Croydon, has known of boys kicked out of school for carrying weapons but he does not believe that to be the answer. “That’s not right,” he says. “They’re taken out of school and put in places with other bad kids, where all the bad kids go. They should stay in school and should be given access to counsellors with support to help them out.”

Angel Lowe, 12, gives a spirited performance of a monologue from a play she has been studying at Gordon’s school, a state-run, voluntary-aided boarding school in Surrey. Angel boards there Monday to Friday before returning home to South Norwood at weekends. “When I’m at school I’m away from knife crime,” she says. “But when I’m home I’m reminded of it often.”

Angel says her stepsister’s cousin was stabbed 14 times in Peckham. “He was so lucky he didn’t die.” . She says many perpetrators of knife violence are part of an ignored part of society. “Maybe if someone was there just to listen to them and their views, they would be different. So many people feel like they’re not heard.” She also thinks the police who work in the communities to reduce knife crime need to be less confrontational.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Angel Lowe, 12: ‘So many people feel like they’re not heard.’ Photograph: Teri Pengilley/The Guardian

Joshua Jean-Pierre, 13, who attends Harris Academy South Norwood, had a near-miss with a stabbing. “We had finished school, we were going to get a McDonald’s. My friend saw this boy who had tried to rob him before. He came over to us and he was about to get something out of his bag – we knew it was going to be a knife.”

A passing member of the public intervened and defused the situation, but it left him shaken. Perhaps he could turn to the police? “The police have come into our schools and searched our bags. It doesn’t make me feel safe. Children worry that the police will plant something in our bag and we’ll be arrested. There isn’t any trust.” And what about the government? “The government does nothing to tackle knife crime,” Joshua says. “They spend all their time and money on Brexit and not anywhere near enough on youth.”

Knife crime is an epidemic. Do we care enough to look for a cure? | Sarah Jones Read more

Magdalene Adenaike, 37, set up Music Relief Foundation, originally for young mums, after she had her first child when she was 18. It evolved into a youth organisation with a goal of reaching out through music. “Young people are able to express themselves through music,” she says. “It’s a powerful and positive way of getting strong messages across.” MRF has a knife crime awareness campaign, More than Able, and last week representatives attended parliament with the Croydon MP Sarah Jones.

Among the audience at the MRF talent show are proud parents of the children taking part. Kai’s playful grandmother can’t resist joining in and steps up to the front to recite Maya Angelou’s poem Still I Rise. The children are captivated.

It’s a warm and magical moment in which the sense of the community in the room – and, particularly after the conversations that have taken place, its underlying fragility – is laid bare.