Paul
McKenzie.
Paul has spent more than 30 years mentoring young people through county lines, grooming and criminal exploitation, and he puts their stories on screen so others can learn from them.
Mentoring young people affected by county lines, grooming and criminal exploitation.
Three decades alongside young people
Paul is a film maker and mentor at Youth Unity CIC with more than 30 years of experience supporting young people affected by county lines, grooming and criminal exploitation. He understands how exploitation starts, how it tightens its grip, and what it takes to help a young person find a way out.
His route into the work was not a conventional one. Paul left an office career as a solicitors’ account manager to volunteer on youth programmes, and a mentoring role in a primary school convinced him this was where he belonged. As serious youth violence grew, he took the work to street level, engaging young people where they were and earning respect in communities across London.
Behind the camera
Film is how Paul takes those conversations further. He makes documentaries and short films about the issues young people face, and he makes them with young people, so their voices run through every frame.
His short film SICK, which tackles mental health in young people, was screened at the National Gallery in London. WILLIAM: The Dangers of Grooming and Crippled Karma: The Story of a Victim take on grooming and youth violence with the same honesty. His films are widely used in schools, colleges and statutory organisations, and they have reached thousands of young people, parents and professionals.
Leading from the street
When a Youth Unity project calls for film or street interviews, Paul leads on it. He has a gift for getting people to talk on camera, whether that is a young person on their own estate or a passer-by on the high street, and those honest conversations are what make the finished films land. The outcomes speak for themselves, time after time.
One example is Point of View, which took a group of young people from inner-city London to the beaches of Cornwall to see life from a different angle, with Paul capturing the journey on film.
Alongside the filming, Paul delivers workshops and talks on serious youth violence, grooming and drugs awareness. He is an experienced public speaker, a life coach and an NLP Master Practitioner, and he is as comfortable in front of a school hall as he is behind a lens.
Seeing the potential
Everything Paul does, on camera and off, is about creating spaces where young people can discover what they are capable of. Paul believes every community has people with the potential to be great, and he has spent 30 years proving it, one young person and one film at a time.
