Our Journey
Our Transition

This is our story

A large group of young black and brown people are standing in front of a brick wall in an interior. A few of them are holding a red booklet titled "DATABASED - The Impacts of Racist 'Gang' Profiling and Surveillance on Young People in London".

This is the story of how we turned pain into power, built community from grief, and created a legacy of healing, resistance, and love.

The beginning

It started with grief. It became a movement for healing.

4Front began in 2012 as a spark - one 16-year-old girl’s grief turned into action.

When Temi Mwale lost her childhood friend, she was hurt and angry. Marvin was murdered one month before his eighteenth birthday. But for those he left behind - including Temi, his next door neighbour from Grahame Park Estate, there was no support. This was the catalyst. 

What started as a campaign for care became something much bigger: a youth-led, community-rooted organisation dedicated to healing harm, resisting criminalisation, and reimagining safety on our own terms.

Over the years, 4Front became a home. A platform. A movement.

A space where the young people most affected by violence, trauma and systemic injustice found belonging - and built power.

An old picture depicting two young children, roughly the age of elementary school.
A black and white shot of a young person at a protest, holding a sign that reads "R.I.P. Marvin Henry" with a photo of the victim. Other signs are also discernible in the background.
Black and white shot of a large peaceful protest with many people standing in silence with a solemn expression. Some of them are holding signs that read "Increase the peace" and others photographs of victims.
A group of people of colour, many of whom are wearing face masks, standing in front of a brick wall, holding many signs that denounce racisme and police brutality during lockdown.

A DIFFERENT KIND OF SAFETY

We didn’t wait for systems to change. We built our own.

We created spaces where young people could unpack trauma, rebuild their identity, and find strength in their vulnerability.

These haven’t just been services - they’ve been lifelines.

Whether supporting someone through a mental health crisis, sitting beside them in hospital, or holding space after loss, our commitment has always been this:

care without judgment.

In moments where harm could have escalated, we reached out. We listened. We created pathways back to understanding.

This has always been love in action - rooted in the belief that relationships can heal.

Small group of four young people standing in an urban environment, facing the camera with a smile.
Young person sitting on the grass in a park, facing the camera, with brick buildings further in the background.
A memorial in front of a brick wall painted with colorful hearts, featuring a green garden bed with flowers, candles, and a black slate sign reading "Anthony's Garden In Loving Memory of Lizzi"
Two young people lit with evening light, standing in front of a building with a neutral expression.

OUR HEARTBEAT – GRAHAME PARK

Rooted in place. Grounded in community.

Grahame Park Estate has been the heart of our work - a place where many of our team grew up. Where we laughed. Grieved. Learned.

It’s where relationships were nurtured, and where we built something new. But it was also marked by systemic neglect, over-policing and rapid gentrification.

Now renamed Heybourne Park, it’s undergoing full-scale demolition - erasing not just buildings, but the communities rooted in them.

Our work was a response to this violence - filling the gaps left by the state, and holding space for young people during profound, painful transformation.

Two young people standing in front of a brick building. The one on the front is holding a black t-shirt with "4FRONT" written on it with white character, and the one behind is wearing that same t-shirt.
Three young people standing in an urban environment, looking at the camera with a smile.
Large environment shot of a grassy park and several recent buildings forming a gentrified neighborhood in the background.
A young person dressed in black is standing in front the map sign for Grahame Park on a brick building, facing the camera

JAHEIM’S JUSTICE CENTRE

A home for healing and transformation

In 2020, we launched Jahiem’s Justice Centre - transforming a disused chemist into the UK’s first Community Justice Centre.

We built it in honour of Jahiem Legister-Hall, a core 4Front member whose life was taken far too soon.

This Centre wasn’t just a building. It was a dream - a kitchen, a studio, a gathering space. It was warmth, food, music, and memory.

A place where young people were able to be. 

In a world that isolates, our Centre created a sense of connection.

Our community dinners were more than meals a they were acts of resistance. We practiced freedom and community care.

A laughing young person in a white polo wearing a backback, holding a smartphone in their right hand and facing the camera.
A small group of five young people of color, standing in front of a closed green shutter with graffiti and a "CHEMISTS" sign above them. Two of them are wearing a black t-shirt with a sign that reads "The 4FRONT Project".
A small group of five people, turning their back to the camera, looking at Jahiem's Justice Centre while a worker on a ladder is working on the Centre's sign.
A young person is sitting on the ground in front of a brick building, looking at the camera with a smile and wearing a black t-shirt with "4FRONT" written on it with white characters.

WHEN SYSTEMS FAILED, WE SHOWED UP

Presence is power. Holding through harm.

We showed up when it mattered most. Our members knew they weren’t alone — not in grief, not in fear, not in struggle.

We’ve walked beside young people through some of the hardest moments of their lives — navigating criminalisation, exclusion, grief and neglect.

We’ve stood in courtrooms, sat in police stations and hospital rooms, visited prisons, written letters, character references and songs. We listened. We responded in crisis.

We’ve held space for families navigating unimaginable loss.

Every time the system failed, we tried to be there - fully, fiercely, without condition. No one should face harm or injustice alone.

Large group of young people from the 4Front Project receiving an award. One of them is holding a large flower bouquet, and most of them are wearing black t-shirts with "4FRONT" written on them.
Small group of 4 young people in a graveyard, holding a large black and white portrait painting of their deceased young relative with "YK's World" written underneath. They are also holding two large helium balloons shaped like the letters Y and K.
Young person sitting on a plastic chair with their hand in their pockets in front Jahiem's Justice Centre, looking at the camera with a serious expression.
Two young people in urban attire stand in a dimly lit alley, looking at the camera with a neutral expression.

BEYOND OUR BLOCK

What we built locally echoed across the country - and the world.

While Grahame Park was our home, 4Front’s power could never be contained to one postcode. Our work has travelled — through collaborations with community organisers, grassroots groups and youth collectives across the UK and beyond.

Together, we’ve shaped a vision for a world that centres healing over punishment, and people over systems.

From Sheffield to Chicago, from courtrooms to classrooms, from protests to poetry readings — our movement has always been grounded in connection.

We were never working in isolation. We were part of something bigger.

A large group of people standing on a bridge, facing the camera with a smile.
Large group of people in black hoodies during a BLM protest, holding and wearing t-shirts that read "No Justice, No Peace" and wearing face masks. They stand in front of a statue of Gandhi, on which is stuck a sign that reads "Stop glorifying Racists - Educate, Agitate, Organise"
Large group of people in a natural environment, standing in front a forest looking at the camera with a smile.
Large group of young people standing in front of Jahiem's Justice Centre, looking at the camera with a smile.

KNOWLEDGE IS POWER

We taught each other how to survive - and how to dream.

We centred political education, not as theory - but as survival. We created spaces to imagine new possibilities, to study systems, and to learn from each other. We’ve taught abolition. Held circles on transformative justice.

Our members have become educators, facilitators, mentors, and organisers. They learned not just for themselves — but for the movements they would go on to shape. They’ve not just shaped their own futures — they’ve shaped ours.

A group of young people sit around a conference table with papers, laptops and microphones, with a 4Front banner standee behind them.
Small group of young people gathered in a dimly lit break room in Jahiem's Justice Centre, sitting on sofas around coffee tables, in front of a white wall decorated with various framed photographs and one large projector screen.
Small group of eight young people holding a large black banner on which is written "No more exclusions - 'When children attend schools that place a greater value on discipline and security than on knowledge and intellectual development, they are attending prep schools for prisons' - quoting Angela Davis"
Two young people in an urban environment are looking at each other laughing. One of them is wearing a 4Front lanyard with a cardholder.

OUR LEGACY

This is our power.

As we close this chapter, we stand in deep pride. 4Front was never just about fighting back. It was about making something beautiful in the ruins.

4Front has been a space where care met action. Where defiance met dignity. Where radical imagination took root and bloomed.

Our legacy is not just in what we’ve done — it’s in who we’ve been. In the people we’ve loved, supported, grown and fought beside. Our work has always been rooted in love, resistance, and the radical belief that healing and justice can be made possible — even in the harshest conditions.

This is what we leave behind. This is what we carry forward.

Large group of young people and children standing in front of Jahiem's Justice Centre, looking at the camera with a smile. Some of them are making various signs with their hands
Young person standing in front of a building block with red brick walls, smiling.
Small group of young people of diverse backgrounds standing in front of a building block, facing at the camera.
Young person with twist braids standing in front of Jahiem's Justice Centre's closed green shutter, looking at the camera with a friendly expression.
We came together in grief • We stayed for the love • We leave with a legacy • We came together in grief • We stayed for the love • We leave with a legacy •