The murder of a man in Kilburn resulted in a youth project undergoing a “soul-searching” mission to tackle gang warfare.
Paul Perkins, chief executive of The Winch in Swiss Cottage, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Iain Duncan Smith the death of Milad Golmakani has changed its way of thinking.
The 22-year-old was stabbed by four teenagers in a tit-for-tat dispute between rival Camden gangs in 2011.
Mr Perkins had worked with one of the convicted killers, now serving a life sentence, years before the crime.
He said: “There was an immediate sense that further down the line he was going to get in trouble so we employed a terrific youth worker who was actually an ex-gang member and gave almost every hour of the day, working with him and his peers.
“It [the murder] really triggered a period of soul-searching where we were saying, ‘We make a promise to have an impact on children and young people’, but we just weren’t convinced that we were doing enough.
“Our activities had really come to reflect local authority funding streams rather than a theory of change that would make a difference.”
Mr Duncan Smith, who described the murder as “terrible”, spoke about the grants and programmes on offer to young people looking to set up a business or find work through Jobcentre Plus.
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