TWTH London tackles Stonebridge at a councilmember’s request for help.
Thanks to a team of volunteers from London, The Way to Happiness campaign was deployed in Stonebridge, an area of London plagued by violent crime, with the most reported gunshots in London for a single year.
The team launched their actions in response to a request from a London city councillor and they titled it the “Safer Stonebridge” project. Stonebridge is so named from the stone bridge built there in 1745 and was later the site of the Stonebridge Farm.
The first phase of the London Way to Happiness chapter’s project resulted in them reaching nearly 6,000 households through door-to-door booklet distributions and outreach to local businesses. To do this, The Way to Happiness team pulled a detailed map of the area, checking off each location as they covered it. They also made a list of all the relevant groups in the area and contacted each to meet with them and get them on board with the project so these groups could then reach their own membership.
The councillor originally requesting the help commended the volunteers for the “importance of this program and the benefits it brings to the community.”
And they have only just begun. They will continue with a community clean-up project, school seminars and more door-to-door distributions. The ultimate goal of the team is to bring peace to the neighbourhood known for having had the highest rate of gun and knife crime in the city.