ESSEX is gripped by a “micro-pandemic” of knife crime with a four-fold rise in offences in seven years.

Official data shows Essex Police recorded 1,123 offences involving a knife or sharp weapon in 2019-20.

This was up from just 257 reported in 2012-13 when comparable data was first published.

The question is what we can do collectively do tackle the crisis.

Southend campaign group Young Lives Matter has joined with UK charity Take A Knife Save A Life as they work determinedly to ram home the anti-knife message.

The partnership comes just a week after the murder of 18-year-old Luke Bellfield, who was stabbed in Old Leigh last Friday.

Just two days after the teen’s murder, another knife incident occurred in Chalkwell Park where a teen was chased by a group of boys with a machete.

The campaign groups have now spelled out their plans to share projects and raise awareness of the danger of carrying or using a knife.

Young Lives Matter and TAKSAL are now working deter the use of knives in the county by educating children and getting them off the streets.

Mac Pemhiwa and Alex Waite founded the Young Lives Matter movement in 2018 and hosted their first event in Southend’s Garon Park to celebrate the life of Fabian Kacica, who lost his life to a knife.

Mac, 31, attended Belfairs School in Leigh and is now working to get kids in Southend educated about the consequences of carrying knives.

He said: “During lockdown we haven’t been able to go out and do knife crime awareness but I have been doing as much as I can on social media and being active through Young Lives Matter.

“TAKSAL is based in Barking where they’re doing a similar thing to raise awareness and they have different projects going on.

“It made sense that if we were working on the same thing we could work together and bring what they’re doing in Barking to tackle knife crime to Southend.”

Mac wants schools to become more active and play a bigger part in the crackdown.

He added: “I think it’s very important that schools get involved in this work. Schools have been acting very naively and turning a blind eye to kids carrying knives.

“One of the things we will be doing is working with ex-offenders and get them going into schools and speaking to teens about the consequences – from people who carry knives, gang members and drug dealers.

“We have to be hard hitting with kids. They have become so desensitised.”

Andrew Hampton, headteacher at Thorpe Hall school said they work to do everything they can to remind pupils how dangerous knife crime is.

He said: “We were shocked to read the tragic news of the fatal stabbing in Leigh-on-Sea last week. At Thorpe Hall we include ‘street wise’ lessons as part of our PSHE programme and do all we can to remind pupils how dangerous and present knife crime can be.”

The council has been leading a nationally recognised campaign, See The Signs, since 2018 in partnership with the police.

Leader of the council, Ian Gilbert, said: “This has aimed to target both children and parents about the risks of child exploitation, county lines and knife crime. As part of this campaign we have developed school-based ‘see the signs’ workshops which have been facilitated in schools since 2019.

“We have delivered the programme to approximately 7,500 students in over 40 of the schools in the borough for those aged nine to 17 years old, and we will again return to schools soon and as national restrictions are eased.”

Mac is now a professional boxer and believes he can also “give back to the community” by using his work to get kids off the streets.

Mac added: “I’m trying to get some funding going so I can get a facility and get kids off the streets and into training with me boxing. “We need our ministers to be held accountable. Us in the community, we’re doing our part but the people that can make a change and put through legislation need to play their part as we battle this, I would say, micro pandemic.”

Mohamed-Sami Mbarki, project manager for TAKSAL, is preparing for the increase in knife crime they’re expecting to see post-Covid.

He said: “Pre-Covid it was bad but now it’s going to be three times worse.

“I’m scared because I have my kids growing up in this. We need to start preventing knife crime and making deterrents.”