WHY PLAY MATTERS How children’s charity created a brighter future in Glasgow
MICHAELA Collins started her journey with children’s charity Possibilities for Each and Every Kid when she was just nine.
Its mission is to support children and young people and to unlock their potential and help them thrive.
And when a teenage Michaela was going off the rails, excluded from school and hanging out on the streets with a gang, they offered her a different future.
She explains: “The East End of Glasgow was not always great growing up as a kid. Gang fights were a part of everyday life. It was on my doorstep, you couldn’t get away from it. Many of my friends turned to drink and drugs to cope.
“We were defined by our postcode. My family grew up around it and I was headed the same way,” says Michaela.
But in 2000, a group of parents got together determined to give their children better opportunities and reclaim places for them to play safely. Together they formed a community-led operation that would eventually become the charity PEEK.
They send teams of Play Rangers into areas around Glasgow armed with a kit bag containing ball games, skipping ropes, den-building equipment and lots of other items for the kids to have fun with out in the open. They are well-known in the area for their red hoodies. Michaela started attending their sessions aged nine. Then, after being excluded from school when she was 14, she began volunteering for PEEK helping deliver play, sport and creative programmes in her area. She says: “At 15 I left school with no aspirations or ideas. But at 16, PEEK offered me an apprenticeship and I’ve been there ever since. My roles over the years have changed as PEEK developed and expanded across Glasgow.”
Now 28, she is a champion for children’s rights has risen through the ranks to become head of development and partnerships.
PEEK now reaches out to more than 30 communities across Glasgow and have around 50 young volunteers aged from 14 to 25 who go out with the play rangers and help set up. They act as role models to the younger kids.
Michaela adds: “These days kids are addicted to tech. They want to stay inside playing computer games all day and you see its impact on their social skills and self-esteem.
“Some of the kids we work with have never even been active – they don’t know how to skip, run and jump. It is partly a confidence thing, if you have constantly been told you can’t go out because it is not safe.
“A five-year-old can’t fight for the right to play, but we can speak for them.”
When people help people it’s a good thing for all of us Carol Anderson, TSB Scotland