Morven Donald's first shocking brush with knife crime came 10 years ago in a grocer's shop in Erskine.
Now 16, the pupil at nearby Park Mains High School remembers three youths bursting into the shop. "They were masked and about 19 and they threatened the shopkeeper with a knife," she says.
"They wanted money and the shopkeeper handed it over. I don't know if they were ever caught – I was only six at the time."
Now Morven is one of a number of young people in Renfrewshire trained to act as peer educators in the campaign against carrying knives. She'll be among more than 100 pupils attending a National Youth Summit at Glasgow Science Centre tomorrow to assess the progress of the No Knives, Better Lives scheme and look at ways the initiative can go forward.
The event, which will also be attended by Cabinet Secretary for Justice, Kenny MacAskill, and former chairman of the Scottish Youth Parliament and founder of Dare2Lead, John Loughton, will include young people from each of the 10 No Knives, Better Lives target areas.
Morven is among several senior pupils at Park Mains High School who will work with first, second and third years to look at issues such as the dangers of carrying knives, and will help run a football tournament to spread the message further as part of an initiative backed by Youth & Sport Services in Renfrewshire Council.
She says it will also look at the bigger picture: "It needs to be about wider social issues as well. There is a stereotype about who carries a knife, but there are other factors such as family trouble at home.
"We want the sessions to be really active, not just sitting there. There isn't a huge knife problem around here and if someone does have a knife they would be looked down on, it wouldn't big them up.
"I am really looking forward to attending the Youth Summit next week and am excited about meeting other young people who are also doing their bit for the No Knives, Better Lives campaign."
The initiative claims surveys show most people back peer education and more youth activities as routes to help cut knife crime. In a YouGov survey, 53% of Scottish adults surveyed said providing peer education will help to deter young people from becoming involved in knife crime, while 63% also backed more positive diversionary activities for young people.
Since 2009, the campaign has been rolled out across 10 local authority areas, and during that time there has been a 20% reduction in crimes of handling an offensive weapon on a national level, according to Government figures.
Mr MacAskill said: "Knife crime has been a blight on our communities for too long. This Government is working tirelessly to tackle this. Education, early intervention and prevention has been vital in helping to achieve these results."
The summit will include creative workshops which will encourage young people to think about the ways they would like to shape the initiative in the future and also consider what more can be done to empower the local community and tackle the negative perceptions of young people.
Another peer educator is Jordan McCafferty, 19, from Hillhouse in Hamilton, who has been a member of the South Lanarkshire Youth Council for five years.
He explains: "I work with youth groups to educate them on the consequences of antisocial behaviour and knife carrying.
"We hear too many stories of young people being the cause of knife crime in society, but the reality is that the majority of us are actively involved in just the opposite kind of behaviour and are committed to making a change for the better."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article