A sports charity that educates nearly 2,000 young people each week about the dangers of knife crime alongside coaching in basketball skills, has scooped the Overall Award at The Charity Awards 2014.

And Michael Norton, founder of the Directory of Social Change and a veteran of countless civil society organisations and initiatives, won the Outstanding Achievement Award.

Newham All Star Sports Academy, based in East London, so impressed the judges with its Carry a Basketball Not a Blade (Cabnab) initiative that they felt the charity deserved not only to win the children and youth category, but also the top accolade of the night.

The charity’s founder and director, Natasha Hart, collected the trophy from Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts and John Low, chief executive of Charities Aid Foundation, overall sponsor of The Charity Awards, before an audience of 700 sector figures, dignitaries and celebrities.  

Nassa was founded in 2006 after Natasha took her two sons to the local park to play basketball.  Other youths joined in and by the end of the session 30 youngsters were playing.  Their potential was obvious, as was their need to gather in a safe environment and have fun, so Natasha arranged more such sessions.

Two years later a friend of one of Nassa’s players, Anthony Okereafor, was killed in a knife attack, prompting Anthony to look for ways to warn the club’s young constituents about the dangers of carrying knives. This required putting Nassa on a more formal footing and it was registered as a club with England Basketball.

Older players were invited to become coaches and Nassa enrolled them all on accredited training courses to gain qualifications.  A local primary school was offered extra-curricular basketball sessions in return for use of its gym for club training.  The school sessions were held before and after school and at lunchtime, and the coaches mixed skills training with talks and mentoring about knife crime.

Within weeks, 16 other schools in Newham had asked the charity to run sessions for them.  Now Nassa runs extra-curricular basketball sessions for up to 2,000 children a week in 65 East London primary schools.

Club coaching also finishes with mentoring and question-and-answer sessions on knife crime.

The charity is certain that Cabnab has directly contributed to the 46 per cent reduction in serious youth violence in Newham in 2013.  

Michael Norton joins Outstanding Achievement winners

Michael Norton, winner of the Outstanding Achievement Award, has been involved in civil society since 1966, when he set up the UK’s first English language teaching course for immigrant families and recruited 250 volunteers to deliver tuition. This experience convinced him of the value of social action and shortly afterwards he left his private sector career and joined the voluntary sector.  

By 1975 he was inspired to create a database of all the new and interesting things people were doing to support disadvantaged groups and the Directory of Social Change was born.  After 20 years at its helm he joined a new venture called Changemakers, and from that a number of projects sprang, including YouthBank UK, MyBnk, Street Children’s Bank and Children’s Helpline India. 

Norton created the Centre for Innovation in Voluntary Action as an umbrella for all his activities, and continues to work from that base today.

He was the co-founder of UnLtd, the foundation for social entrepreneurs, which was awarded the £100m Millennium Legacy as an endowment, and still supports 2,000 early-stage entrepreneurs each year.

He was also instrumental in the setting up of FoodCycle, one of the charities shortlisted in this year’s Charity Awards.

In 2011 he launched the crowdfunding website Buzzbnk, and two years ago he realised a long-harboured dream to promote effective ways of replicating good ideas, co-founding the International Centre for Social Franchising.

Norton’s wife, Dame Hilary Blume, founder and director of Charities Advisory Trust, and son Toby Blume, former Urban Forum CEO, were at last night's ceremony to see him collect his award.

He was presented with it by BBC political editor Nick Robinson and Andrew Hind, chair of The Charity Awards judging panel.

Click here to read Tania Mason's profile of Michael Norton.

• Check back to civilsociety.co.uk shortly to read what the winners said on the night.