FOR INSTANCE

Amateur clubs on joining the Fight For Peace network

REDDITCH Boxing Academy is one of the established amateur boxing clubs that is a member of the Fight For Peace alliance. They have been using their support for a specific project for young women at high risk of exclusion from a local secondary school. Fight For Peace described a: ‘a co-designed programme that combines boxing and personal development. Through bespoke one to one surgeries and tailored training sessions for front line staff, delivered by Fight for Peace consultants, the two organisations worked in partnership to create a series of personal development activities specifically identifying the needs of the target group of young people.

‘The successful delivery of the boxing and personal development sessions resulted in requests for additional support from the local school in engaging at risk young women.’

The Pat Benson Boxing Academy, which has an award winning mental health programme, is also part of the Fight For Peace network. The director there, Paddy Benson said, “We looked at our structure, took advantage of consultancy advice, one to one meetings and the support of the network of organisations.”

“One of the things that we got from Fight for Peace is that it is great to have the organisation youth led. Our two apprentices chair our youth council so its gives them management expertise, experience in leading other young people and at the same time it gives young people the chance to voice their opinion,” he added, “What we are trying to do is to turn this gym into being youth led and hopefully if we can have the gym run by people through our apprentice scheme and the youth council, then I think that would be a great thing.”