Using the power of rugby and the appeal of the England team, the Guinness Premiership Clubs and the Rugby Football Union in partnership with the Metropolitan Police, Active Communities Network and Wooden Spoon, the Hitz programme targets some of the most disadvantaged areas in London.

The eleven-strong group from the MPS’ Directorate of Information will help run the charity’s Wednesday night youth groups, fundraising activities and business development outreach - targeting Canary Wharf and other corporate partners.

The charity, which funds more than 120 crime prevention projects across the capital, was established in partnership with London’s business community in 2005 to combat the rise in London’s violent crime, and also to aid victim support.

Metropolitan Police Service Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson, who led the birthday reception as President of SLF, said:

Joined by the SLF team alongside Da’Watul Islam president Mahmudul Hasan, the Home Secretary visited the ‘Shaddywood Crime Film Challenge’ project, which brings together young people from a variety of faiths, using the way gang violence is portrayed by Hollywood to help confront the reality of these crimes on the streets.

HRH The Prince of Wales initially supported The Safer London Foundation and became its inaugural Patron when the charity was first established in 2005. The Foundation promotes community safety by channelling money and support from business, the public sector and also from criminal assets seizures, into grassroots crime prevention initiatives.

This donation resulted from a Met rugby team’s success at an O2 six-a-side rugby challenge event at Twickenham stadium late last year. One of the two Met teams taking part won the competition and chose Safer London Foundation, the Metropolitan Police Charity, as the beneficiary of the £4000 prize.

Confiscated from criminal activity by the Police, under the Proceeds of Crime Act (2002), around £170,000 in cash will be allocated to several grass-roots projects, which work to divert young people away from street crime, gang-related violence and weapons offences.

Organised by the Safer London Foundation (SLF), the Metropolitan Police Charity, companies experienced first-hand culinary skills of offenders who are training to be chefs, kitchen staff and waiters, so that they may gain work and make a positive contribution to society following their release.

Local crime prevention groups were celebrating across London this week as the one hundredth training seminar was given to leaders of the capital’s ward policing panels.

Joined by the Deputy Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Tim Godwin, a number of Safer Neighbourhoods Panel leaders will meet at New Scotland Yard (on Monday 23rd November) to celebrate the achievement and inspire other Londoners to join and make a difference.

With presentations from Cindy Butts, MPA Deputy Chair, and Kit Malthouse, London's Deputy Mayor  for Policing, The Met's Head of Safer Neighbourhoods, Chief Superintendent Adrian Hanstock, and a host of community representatives, the Community Engagement  Programme Conference was the only place to be for any one interested in keeping London's policing locally accountable.

What would you do if offered four large plastic barrels, eight fat bamboo poles and 10 metres of poly rope?  Well, the right answer is build a raft and get yourself sponsored and that’s exactly what the sixteen teams who entered the Safer London Foundation (SLF) Raft Race did before putting their craft to the test on, or more accurately in, the murky waters of Wimbledon Park Lake.

Tony Shepherd has today been awarded the London Marks & Spencer Sieff Award ‘for an individual, based in the community, who has best collaborated with business to benefit society,’ one of the most prestigious categories in Business in the Community’s (BITC’s) 2009 Awards for Excellence.

Interserve PLC has become the latest company to pledge its support to the Safer London Foundation, the  Metropolitan Police charity.

The new partnership will see Interserve donate £25,000 a year over the next three years to SLF in return for membership of the Safer London Foundation Club.

From the May 2009 issue of Metropolitan Police Service magazine The Job:

"For the past four years the Safer London Foundation has been helping London’s communities help themselves.

You’d be hard pressed to find a 15-year-old boy in Britain who would turn down the opportunity to captain a  powerboat full throttle down the Thames. The image of a teenager happily pulling U-turns in the water in  front of the O2 Arena as his mates egg him on is a welcome change from the usual media portrayal of hoodies hanging out on street corners..."