A project has launched to prevent youth fatalities through street violence.

Project Zero has been set up by a team behind the youth engagement programme MVP and Steve Barnabis, who founded the Soul Project which offers education and support for families and young people.

The programme aims to prevent any young person from losing their life to gun or knife crime over the next year.

The plan is to hold outreach workshops, offer mentoring schemes and positive activities to keep young people off the streets.

Mr Barnabis and the team run workshops on music production, graphic design, street art and many more youth-orientated topics, which also promote social inclusion, help to prevent anti-social and offending behaviour, and support personal development and growth.

Justin Bayley, MPV’s creative director, said: “I told a person what Project Zero aimed to do and they laughed at my ambition – but why should we simply accept that a number of our young people will die from stabbings or shootings?

“A violent death for our young is not a sad reality – it’s something we can address and end – if we work together.”