CABNAB was given a Highly Commended award in the Community category at a glittering ceremony at London’s Park Plaza Westminster Bridge hotel.
The accolade is due recognition for CABNAB’s role in helping to save lives in east London by educating young people on the dangers of knife crime and gang culture.
It was set up by NASSA after one of our players, Anthony Okereafor, lost two of his friends in separate knife-related incidents in 2008.
Anthony wanted to do something positive in memory of his two friends to try and ensure that similar tragedies would not affect other communities in the London Borough of Newham and beyond.
Anthony was present at the Charity Times Awards evening. He said: “It is amazing that CABNAB has been recognised in this way. The message that CABNAB gets across is a powerful one but we need to keep reaching and educating more and more young people.
“Being highly commended in these awards is great. It means we are doing something right, but we need to keep going.”
CABNAB mentoring talks are included in the school basketball sessions that NASSA lays on in schools across east London, which means that over 2,000 local schoolchildren are educated on the subject of knife crime every week.
The programme is working. Metropolitan Police figures show that no young person lost his or her life as a direct result of knife crime in the 12 months to August 2015 — down from 11 and six in the previous two years.