WASHINGTON BOXING CLUB
Providing support in their community
WASHINGTON boxing club, like gyms across the country, has been closed over the latest lockdown. But the club hasn’t let that hold it back from continuing to support their local community.
Washington has placed a special emphasis on this social aspect of their work. They have invested in training welfare officers who help the members of the club, and their families, particularly with mental health, a serious issue for some of the young people and also their parents. “During lockdown I’ve been in contact with a few of the people from the club but just over the phone, just giving them support and someone to talk to,” Kelly Brown, one of Washington’s welfare officers, said.
They’ve been maintaining that connection with their members as best they can remotely. “What we’ve been doing is sending them, on Whatsapp, different kinds of fitness programmes they can do and healthy eating just to keep their mood up and their exercise patterns going,” Brown said. “It’s knowing how they are, how their sleep pattern’s gone.”
Brown had initially been involved with the exercise and fitness side of the gym, but then through the club became one of two welfare officers. “After speaking to the kids and the families I wanted to stop the exercising part of it and I said I wanted to actually gain some more qualifications with mental health and suicide prevention,” she explained. “I talk more to the families so I can see when some of the families are going through rough times.
“We’ve got a lot of female boxers that we like to bring in, focus on them and keep them out of problems.
“I think that half the families actually come to the club because they know it’s more for mental health. It’s a very happy place. “It’s like a boxing family we’ve got.” It’s a significant provision. The welfare officers are able to flag, for instance, someone with suicidal tendencies to other services. Once the club can reopen they’ll be running in person groups with Mind. “Just to support people that were having problems, people had lost their jobs so coming in to help support people with money, giving them some guidance, suicide awareness also,” Kelly said.
“There’s always something to do in the club other than just the boxing. It’s not just about the boxing, we’ve got a lot of things going on.”
As well as completing their own refurbishment of the gym, the club has also been raising considerable amounts of money for charity, seeing real generosity in people. Over Christmas they got together substantive hampers of food and gifts. They delivered these to families who, without the hamper, wouldn’t have been able to enjoy much of a Christmas at all. “When we were taking things to the doors, the families were getting really emotional,” Brown said. “I think especially with the emotions that are going in the world right now with the Covid situation, people losing their jobs, being isolated, they just don’t know how to think sometimes. It gets so hard for people and it’s just nice to know that other people are thinking of people and stepping in just to give each other a hand. It didn’t cost anything to be kind. It’s just nice to know that other people are there for each other.”
‘IT’S NICE TO KNOW PEOPLE ARE STEPPING IN JUST TO GIVE EACH OTHER A HAND’