WHAT IS?
providing young people with the practical
skills they need to save lives. We have a
small but dedicated and hardworking
team at Liverpool and we cover a huge
amount of ground in Merseyside.We
work with youth offending team’s right
from Wavertree to the Wirral to St.
Helens and our services are increasingly
in demand. We don’t lecture and preach
StreetDoctors is a national charity
at these young people that violence is
devoted to teaching young people how wrong and never solves anything; more
to save lives. These young people are
often than not these young people are
specifically young offenders and they
carrying weapons not because they have
are taught how to save a life if someone a particular inclination to hurt someone
but out of a very justifiable fear. What we
has been stabbed or is unconscious.
Think teaching first aid except a grittier do is engage with them and teach them
version, where instead of a room full of how to respond in these terrifying
situations, how to help their friends and
office workers you teach a room full of
family if one of them gets hurt.
young people who have often been in
these dangerous situations and have
At times the sessions are difficult, some
young people are blatantly there for a tick
the harrowing scars to prove it.
box exercise as part of a court order but
StreetDoctors was actually born in
others actually take a lot away and we
Liverpool in 2008 by two medical
have had feedback of instances where
students who were giving first aid to
some actually used the skills we taught
local teenagers and were horrified that them to help their friends. The sessions
are highly rewarding and we have a real
so many of the young people who
attended had been or known someone team ethos here at Liverpool.
who had been stabbed or shot. Second All new recruits are sent to an all-
expenses paid national conference in
to only London, Liverpool had (and still
Birmingham for the weekend where
does) the highest rate of youth violence
administration processes such as DBS’
in the UK. Their work spread and spread are completed and you learn how to
and now almost every medical school in conduct the sessions, listen to moving
the country has a StreetDoctors team
What is StreetDoctors? What do you
do? Do you go out on the street and tell
people you are going to be a doctor? Do
you act as a kind of superhero medical
help force providing assistance to
people on the streets? The answer is
no.
accounts of parents and relatives who
have lost son’s and daughter’s to this
senseless violence and have a great
night out in Birmingham with the other
StreetDoctors teams.We are on a big
fundraising drive this year so that we can
reach even more young people so if you
happen to have a spare £5 then I
promise you this is a highly worthy cause
to invest it in. Text ‘SDRS05 £5’ to 70070
or you can donate via Facebook on the
StreetDoctors page.
Natasha Varshney, 3rd year
medical student