• BGCSY
• Thu, 07 Sep 2017
• No Comments

One of the main challenges community groups are facing is cohesion within communities and integrating different cultures and backgrounds.  Last year we receive a phone call from one of our affiliated groups Doncaster Plant Works ABC explaining to us issues they were having with high levels of crime in the local community.  They had a solution which they wanted to implement but did not have the capacity to do so.  The idea was to utilise unused space within their boxing club for the community to use to help break down barriers, reduce anti-social behaviour and issues young people were facing as well as integrating the large Roma/Slovak community in the area.

After three meetings with the club leader and representatives from the local community it was evident that a pilot project needed to be run to help gather evidence to prove to funders that there was a need for support in the area.  As a result of these meetings we supplied 3 workers for a six week project delivering multi sports and detached youth work in the community.  The project was an outstanding success and we engaged with over 50 young people and parents and community leaders who we collected views and their aspirations from them by doing a consultation.

At the end of the project we ran a community sporting tournament and we provided £200 of equipment for them to use a stop gap to continue to deliver while we put together a funding bid a community action plan.  As a result of all the work we did and the evidence we gathered we are about to launch this month a youth and community club which is to run alongside the existing boxing club and we have secured funding to deliver this initially for the next 12 months.