Life after Death

Ann Oakes-Odger she is courage woman who struggles for human rights you should check out http://www.knifecrime.org I also believe in life after death thank you everyone who commented continue visiting and promote my blog, as you could see, I'm someone who struggle and support something like that. thank you, friends for everything, you are the most important. Keep promoting PEACE, LOVE, KNOWLEDGE and EDUCATION. Check out the article bellow. (by Carlos Tour guide).

Source: Speak Up

Language level: Upper intermediate

Speaker: Justin Ratcliff

Accent: British standard

LIFE AFTER DEATH

One afternoon in September 2005, Westley Odger was standing in the queue to make Money out of a cash machine in the pretty town of Colchester in Essex. A man barged in front him and Westley reprimanded him. The man swore at him and went away. Minutes later he returned with his brother. A fight broke out and Westley was stabbed in the neck. He died a few hours later in hospital, another victim of Britain’s knife crime problem. Later it was discovered that both of the assailants already had criminal records. After this tragedy Westley’s grieving mother, Ann Oakes-Odger, decided to devote her energies to campaigning against knife crime and she founded an organisation called Knifecrimes.org. we asked her whether this work had helped her cope with her sense of loss:

Ann Oakes-Odger

(Standard British accent)

It has helped because to lose a son in this terrible way is often difficult to actually look at, having some kind of purpose in life. A parent tends to feel that somehow they’ve failed their child, when in actual fact something like this can happen to any family. So, to actually look to making some kind of sense, and purpose, come out of a terrible situation does help and to know that, by putting and organisation such as knifecrimes.org together to help people, does give me some comfort.

And if would seem that her work has also had a positive effect for others:

Ann Oakes-Odger:

Well I certainly believe that, through the expansion of awareness throughout the UK, that knife crime has come down if I illustrate London, for example, in 2007, which was the first year that I actually achieved a Home Affairs Select Committee, which is a party of government M.P.s looking at the information that I provided, that year alone London had 28 teenagers stabbed to death in 2008, again, there was 29 young teenagers (sic). 2009, because of the focus of our work, that came down to 14, which is 14 too many teenagers, but nevertheless there were less victims, as a result of raising that awareness, and it is felt that, by continuing to keep that information flowing and not becoming complacent, we will ensure that we keep that impetus going, so that there are less young people likely to be maimed or killed.

FEAR

We then asked her why young people carried knives.

Ann Oakes-Odger

There’s several different aspects to why young people carry knives. Some of it is just foolish disbelief and fear. Disbelief that they will be harmed by their own weapon, fear makes them think that “if I carry a knife, I can use if to defend myself” and that is a very foolish belief. We know that from statistics that, in the main, that knife will be taken from them and used on them.

Then there is another sector of young people and those are the young people that have been recruited by older boys with their own agenda to pull them into crime through drug dealing. So that’s another aspect. And then we have postcode wars, where gangs in certain areas of the country form gangs where they become territorial and one gang will not be able to step into another gang will not be able to step into another gangs’ area. These are all the issues that we work hard to break down by educating young people to all of those aspects, we are trying to ensure that they are not used by criminal gangs, or carrying knives.

And it seems that www.knifecrimes.org work is also being noticed abroad.

Ann Oakes-Odger

As an organization that was started in Essex, as a county, we expanded nationally and then we started to get enquires from Europe, from Australia, from Canada, America, places like Turkey, Malta, Greece, quite unbelievably, all over, and what is clear is that Britain isn’t the only country that is experiencing this problem and we are, as civilised people, we look to find ways of increasing our ability to communicate with each other, without the use of violence. So it’s very exciting that we’ve had to many enquiries looking to the work that we’re doing in Britain as perhaps you could say, a yardstick or an example, of the programme, that could be replicated in other countries. So that’s very exciting.