“We raised £1 million to stop knife crime and bring up neglected children in East London”

A woman has raised £1 million to try to stop knife crime by throwing ingenious themed fundraising parties. Brogan Garrit-Smith works for Wickers Charity, which was founded by her father in 2017, and works practically with troubled young children in Hackney and Tower Hamlets, trying to change their trajectory in life.

Brogan has taken a rather extravagant approach to raising money for these children who are growing up in difficult environments. She organized a number of themed events such as a Great Gatsby themed boxing event, an annual sports festival and more, as well as meeting with entrepreneurs, companies and individuals to obtain donations.

Brogan said: “We believe every young person has the right to fulfill their potential, regardless of race, religion or zip code.”

READ MORE: Boy, 6, dies after falling more than 150 meters from Plaistow tower block

But it’s not just about the money for Brogan, and she explained how the charity encourages people to become concrete mentors to struggling children. They work with schools and target those on the fringes who seem to stray from the straight and narrow.

She said: “It’s not just about the money, I feel like I’ve created a community of people who want to make a difference and you can do it without money.”

For example, Brogan said estate agency Savills couldn’t pay a donation for a month, so instead he arranged for 16-year-olds to work at the company to expose them to the world of work. Brogan added: “I need people to believe in people and light up communities where they’ve never seen the light. I think that’s what makes us different as a charity.”

One young man they helped is Teriko. While the charity aims to help people up to the age of 21, their long-term schemes mean they become ‘part of the family and guide them into adulthood and help them make the right decisions and give them opportunities on who may never make them. I had,” Brogan said. He was one of those cases. Many other children the charity has worked with say they could have returned to gang violence if they hadn’t been shown the right path.

It all started with Brogan’s father, who set up the charity in 2017. She spoke about what inspired him to do it: “He grew up in a family surrounded by crime in East London and promised himself that, if he ever succeeds, he will return. to give back and he was a man of his word.”

She began fundraising in 2018 when her father challenged her to raise £60,000 in five weeks for a climbing expedition. “He likes to set inherently high goals for me, I think it’s his archaic way of parenting,” she said. Taking up the challenge, Brogan ended up raising £184,000 in six weeks. She created a journal for the climb because she believes keeping donors as “part of the story” and community is important. In it, her father almost lost his nose to frostbite.

One thing led to another and Brogan started creating events. She originally wanted to create a theme around Peaky Blinders, but then saw the irony of an anti-knife party being themed around a violent gang. The council told him it was “like throwing a drug-free Pablo Escobar-themed party”. He went back to the drawing board and landed The Great Gatsby party, selling tickets for £250. The events were high-end – champagne towers, martini glasses, black tie and lots of fun. He also runs a sports festival filled with pizza fans and local vendors, along with events like an egg and spoon race and a one-legged race.

“The charity world is very bureaucratic and it’s very formal and maybe that’s what sets me apart from the rest – that they come and say ‘do you want to do an egg and spoon race for a bit of fun?’ “

According to the ONS, as a result of the pandemic, knife crime has increased every year in London, with 13,300 incidents recorded in 2022/23. In 2022/23, the highest number of knife or sharps crimes in London was recorded in Westminster (871 crimes or 426 per 100,000 population). The largest proportional increase of 44% was recorded in Havering (an increase from 177 offenses in 2021/22 to 255 in 2022/23).

She said Sadiq Khan had led such a rise in knife crime: “Whatever this man does, it’s not working,” she said. Instead, Brogan suggests that work experience programs that are set up to expose them to life and see where they want to go could be a good alternative to police warnings.

Wickers is using all that money raised by Brogan to provide qualified mentors and therapists to work with the schools. Targeting troubled youth, they work five days a week on sports programs and computer programs. This year alone they gave jobs to 57 young people when they left school. They also do extracurricular trips, such as trips to Switzerland, to take the youngsters out of their difficult environment. This also comes alongside employment workshops.

Wickers is one of the UK’s fastest growing charities and is now working with the police to help tackle knife crime together. In the future, Brogan and her father hope to grow from East London and Hackney to other parts of the city and eventually work in the UK.

Get London’s biggest stories straight to your inbox. Sign up to MyLondon’s The 12 HERE for the biggest 12 stories every day.