RISING singer Cecil has launched anti-knife crime campaign Project Ceasefire and has released a song and music video.
The efforts are an attempt to highlight the damage caused by knives and to persuade young people to stay away from them.
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The singer has been working with families of knife crime victims to try to raise awareness.
She said: “I want to help get youngsters off the streets and give them something to aspire to.
“This doesn’t have a gender, it doesn’t have a race, it’s a human thing and we need to come together to end the bloodshed on our streets.”
Ceasefire is a song with a powerful message to encourage young people to put their knives down and focus on their future.
Cecil has been working with eight families of victims in total and has featured them in her video.
The mother of knife-crime victim Azaan Kaleem, who was killed last year aged just 18 in an unprovoked attack in Luton, Roseann Taylor, 47, said: “It needs to go back to something as simple as how we are talking to our male children and telling them to ‘man-up’ and teach them ‘It’s not OK to be vulnerable.’
“We need to nurture male children. I’d say to kids carrying children a weapon around with them, ‘It’s not OK.’ We need a ceasefire.”
Azaan was Roseann’s only child and her life was shattered when he was set upon in an unprovoked attack, lasting just 22 seconds, by a gang of strangers in the street.
Azaan, known to friends as AJ, died in hospital three days after being stabbed in the heart, along with 20 other stab wounds to his body.
Azaan had been walking in Luton with his girlfriend after they had attended a funeral when he was attacked.
He was murdered after a teenager on a bike summoned a group of friends because he was not happy with “a look”.
After receiving a phone call, Roseann arrived at the scene but was kept away by police as paramedics battled for an hour to revive him. She endured an agonising wait at the hospital and it was five hours before she discovered her son was still alive when a doctor asked her if he was allergic to penicillin.
But Azaan never regained consciousness and Roseann was forced to take the agonising decision to turn off his life support system the following night after tests showed he was brain dead.
Four men were jailed over the Azaan’s death.
Rashaan Ellis, 19, and Callum Smith, both 19, were sentenced to life with a minimum term of 18 years for murder.
Harrison Searle, 18, of Luton, was also convicted of murder and got 16 years.
Reece Bliss-McGrath, 20, was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to 11 years.
Speaking in September to raise awareness Roseann said: “It’s difficult retelling my story but it’s also part of my grieving process. To me, it’s about keeping Azaan’s memory alive and making sure his life wasn’t in vain. He was too young to leave his legacy so it’s like, ‘let’s make your legacy for your son’.”
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