Steve Barnabis
Happy Place
Fearne Cotton
4.6 • 15.2K Ratings
🗓️ 3 May 2023
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this special episode in partnership with The National Lottery, Fearne speaks to East Londoner Steve Barnabis who's dedicated his life to saving children from knife crime. He’s spent his entire career working to improve the lives of young people, to tackle youth violence, and create safe spaces for children and teens to express themselves.
After meeting the Royals at a Big Lunch event last year, Steve, together with his organisation Project Zero, and the local community, will be putting on his own Coronation Big Lunch over the bank holiday weekend. The Big Lunch, made possible by National Lottery Players, brings millions of people together annually to boost community spirit, whilst encouraging neighbours to share friendship, food and fun.
In this chat with Fearne, Steve explains how understanding the root causes of knife violence – mental health, school performance, home life anxieties – is the key to reducing anti-social and offending behaviour, and promoting social inclusion. He also opens up about how knife crime has directly affected his family.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to Happy Place with me, Fern Cotton. Today a very special episode |
| 0:07.7 | made possible by the National Lottery. I'm meeting Steve Barnabas. |
| 0:12.0 | Sometimes you can see lots of indicators and factors into the roads that some young people might go down. |
| 0:20.0 | Issues around mental health, how well they're doing at school, anxieties and pressures |
| 0:25.9 | can lead young people into many different situations. We have situations where sometimes young people |
| 0:31.6 | feel for their own safety they need to carry a knife as an example. There's no kind of one-size-fits-all kind |
| 0:37.5 | of situation. You have to really look at young people as individuals and have a real understanding |
| 0:43.3 | of what they might be dealing with or going through. Steve is the founder of Project Zero, an East London |
| 0:49.5 | organisation aiming to see a year where no young person dies as a result of knife crime. |
| 0:57.0 | Whilst working with local communities to provide safe spaces for young men and women, |
| 1:02.5 | Steve and his family have twice suffered life-changing events that reaffirmed Project Zero's |
| 1:09.6 | mission. In 2004 his second cousin Robert was killed as a result of a knife attack. |
| 1:17.2 | And in 2019 he lost another second cousin Alex in the same way. |
| 1:23.4 | Since then Steve has continued to be a force for good in the local community, working to address |
| 1:29.5 | youth inclusion, employment and engagement. He's even had his own mural put up in Wartham Stowe |
| 1:36.8 | which you must google. It is a powerful image or perhaps if you're in the area, |
| 1:41.4 | what passed it and do a big thumbs up to Steve. Steve has an incredible commitment to his mission |
| 1:47.6 | and his community which will no doubt be on show at the Coronation Big Lunch, |
| 1:53.4 | he and Project Zero are throwing over the bank holiday weekend. Here's just one of many communities |
| 1:59.8 | all over the UK that are getting together to celebrate the upcoming coronation with a bit of help |
| 2:05.5 | from national lottery players. National lottery players raise over 30 million pounds a week |
| 2:12.1 | to support good causes all over the UK which includes funding that has gone towards the running |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Fearne Cotton, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Fearne Cotton and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.