5. Birmingham & Walsall: Swords into ploughshares

BONUS: The School of the Wise Men

In this final bonus episode, we pass the mic to a group of young warriors who call themselves the ‘wise men.’ They are a group of young men from the east end of Glasgow whose lives have been affected by violence, and who’ve not always felt included in school. In the episode they talk frankly about their experiences, interview Marge the dog, quiz their teachers, and have a searching conversation with Scott, a local legend who whisked them out of the school and off into the outdoors. As they say, ‘we want you to listen to this podcast and make things change.’

6. Glasgow: Wise men and natural highs

Breathe in the fresh air of hope and take a seat in the school of the wise men. In the final episode, Ali returns home to Glasgow to meet Kyle and Mark from G20, a youth project based in Maryhill.  The area was the setting of a book called ‘A Glasgow Gang Observed’, where bored teens made excitement through running battles, but G20 seeks to turn this adventurous spirit in a different direction. Ali then travels to the city centre to catch up with his old boss Karyn McCluskey, former Director of the Scottish Violence Reduction Unit, prompting a reflective take on the series as a whole. The final act is to pass the mic to a group of young warriors called the wise men, who stage a podcast takeover and take Ali to school.

5. Birmingham & Walsall: Swords into ploughshares

Peer into displays where knives have been recast as art, and ponder what it all means. Ali travels north to Walsall, a market town just outside Birmingham, where he peers curiously into a series of display cabinets. In them are more than twenty pieces of jewellery and art recast from bladed weapons from police surrender bins. He tours the exhibition with Ben, Gabe and Ali, who school him on the meaning of – among other things – life and death, out-of-touch politicians, and the purifying appeal of Japanese religion. In conversation with the curators and youth worker Ade from the James Brindley Foundation, Ali asks whether – like the displays – stereotypes of young people and knife crime can also be remade.  https://jamesbrindleyfoundation.co.uk/james-brindley/ [https://jamesbrindleyfoundation.co.uk/james-brindley/]

4. Cardiff: Violence on the frontline

Follow a fiery collective of young people as they take their fight against violence to the Welsh Parliament. Five minutes after arriving in Cardiff, Ali finds himself in an emergency vehicle hurtling across the city, siren blasting. Once he recovers his breath he visits the Peer Action Collective, a diverse group of young people who travel the country interviewing their peers about violence, taking their findings to the Welsh Parliament. Rather than putting young people in a box – like criminal or offender – PAC help them smash it. Fresh approaches to violence are everywhere in Cardiff, and Ali follows them to the frontline of violence, from emergency response to hospital wards.  https://mediaacademycymru.wales/peer-action-collective/ [https://mediaacademycymru.wales/peer-action-collective/]

3. Dundee: Gang labels and deep time

Journey deep into the history of gangs and learn how they are stitched into cities past and present. Gangs are as old as time. Follow Ali as he journeys into the rabbit hole of history in the Scottish city of Dundee, pulling the thread of a mysterious story of gang jumpers knitted by grannies in the 1970s, and following it all the way back to William Wallace in the 13th century. He meets Frances Stevenson and John Fyfe, two of the pairs of hands behind the epic Dundee Tapestry, where the story of gang jumpers is stitched in alongside factories and whaling. And he asks the punk poet, proud Dundonian and erstwhile binman Gary Robertson if we need labels like gangs. https://www.thedundeetapestry.com [https://www.thedundeetapestry.com]