Why Me?
Hi, my name is Alex and I am crowd funding for a cause that is vey close to my heart. Something that I have personal lived experience of and that I am driven to change to improve the life chances of the young people who are losing their futures to grooming, exploitation, gang culture and knife crime.
At the start of the pandemic my team and I volunteered a huge amount of time, day and night to deal with situations that statutory services couldn't respond to or deal with. We saw (and continue to see) gang warfare take children as young as 8, we see children who are ten years old running drugs on trains across counties and living in trap houses with older gang members who are abusing them but making them feel protected, like family. We are seeing parents who have spiralled into the depths of a mental health crisis, taking drugs with their children and experiencing family violence. We are seeing children, yes children, not young people acquiring swords, daggers, knives and shotguns and taking them out on the street for "protection".
I was 10 when I first became gang affiliated, I lost a lot of my life and friends to criminal activity, I have done things I am not proud of and when I walked out the prison gates 10 years ago, I knew I had to use my experiences to prevent children from going down the path that I did.
I am lucky, I am here to tell my story. But I have lost friends along the way to the streets and gang culture. My friends have lost brothers, sisters, nephews and nieces, all for a postcode and now i am witnessing primary school children being used as bait in a game that none of them should be playing.
The Extra Milers was created out of need. It was created in response to what is happening on our streets, right here in and around Birmingham and across the country, right now. We are a team built on lived experience of gangs, violence and the criminal justice system. This is why we are so well placed to make such a huge difference - children relate to us, they know that we really do understand and they know that they can trust us, they know they are not just a number.
Mentors on the Move enables our teams to go into the heart of desperate situations, using our experience, training and techniques to help children and young people out of desperate situations. We go when we are needed - not just when we are open - if its 3am and a child is in danger and needs us, we are there. If they need us at school, to help talk to the teachers, we are there. If they need to tell us something but don't know what to do - we are there and we will help them. We mentor and provide them with extended safety networks to ensure that they get the right support at the right time.
How this money will help -
£5,000 will enable us to provide additional hours for one Emergency Responder, on our most critical call outs. This will mean we can reach 72 more children per year than we currently do now.