The Flavasum Trust

Young people don’t have it easy. The right job is difficult to find and education doesn’t always deliver. Some of the most vulnerable end up joining a gang or carrying a knife for an extra sense of security.

Reaching them and gaining their trust is an uphill struggle for agencies and organisations trying to reduce youth violence.

The Flavasum Trust believes that the arts have an important role to play. We think disaffected young people respect creativity and can be engaged when ideas and issues relating to their lives are openly and honestly discussed.

This is the reason why the Trust was set up – to fund organisations using the arts to help the most marginalised and disaffected find ways to change their lives.

Reducing the number of young people carrying knives is our key aim, but that can never be enough. More has to be done to help them live more positive lives, or society will have to deal with an angry and resentful minority who see no reason to change.

Current work

Flavasum has been awarded funding by the Knife Angel Legacy Fund to deliver anti-knife crime theatre performances in Luton secondary schools during 2025. We will be working with our partners Arc Theatre and Chickenshed Theatre and have matched this new funding to almost double the number of young people they can reach.

Recent work

In July 2022, we were able to support The Comedy School and Arc Theatre perform their interactive anti-knife crime plays in 13 primary schools and 7 secondary schools in Luton, reaching a total of 3,900 students. In May 2023 we published our Impact Evaluation of these school interventions.

In November 2022, we supported Arc Theatre perform its powerful youth engagement project to raise awareness of the realities of Stop and Search in six Luton primary schools, reaching a further 495 students.

Previously, in March 2020, just as COVID hit us, we supported The Comedy School perform its play for 1,400 primary-school students in Luton, and the year before we reached over 6,000 London secondary-school students in 35 schools with our anti-knife programme facilitated by Nathan Levy, and worked with the London Ambulance Service and the Metropolitan Police in Barking & Dagenham, Redbridge and Havering .

More information here…

Leaside Trust

In 2021, on behalf of Flavasum, the Sinclair Trust donated its narrowboat, the ‘Martin Sinclair’, on permanent loan to the Leaside Trust, for the benefit of young people in Hackney and nearby boroughs. Check them out at leaside.org.uk.

Funding

If you would like to know what we receive and spend each year, take a look at our profile pages at the Charity Commission – it provides a simple record from our annual returns. For more information, please contact us using the Contact form.