Getting Ready Launch
24 October 2013
25 October 2013
On Thursday 24 October, the Streatham Youth and Community Trust kicked off the Sport England supported £250,000 sports programme Getting Ready which will give 4,500 young people the chance to learn a new sport within their local community.
London Youth’s Getting Ready sports programme has received this funding from Sport England through their Community Sport Activation Fund and will work with 60 youth clubs in the London boroughs of Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets, Waltham Forest, Lambeth and Southwark for the next three years.
London Youth will provide sport participation opportunities for 4,500 young people aged 14 – 25 and develop 360 youth workers, volunteers and young leaders as community sport coaches. 120 young leaders will also attend sport leadership residentials to hone their skills and be confident in supporting sports delivery back at their youth clubs.
The programme will give young people access to a huge range of sports – from karate to tennis, and tag rugby to street dance – and some of these were demonstrated at the event with over 30 young people taking part in football, cricket, table tennis, gym+fitness and taekwondo sessions.
Rosie Ferguson, chief executive of London Youth, said:
“Sport is an incredibly important way for young people to learn new skills, responsibilities and have fun. We know some young people find it difficult to get involved in school sports, so Getting Ready is special because it will offer the chance for them to learn new sports in clubs and community centres.
We’re so pleased that Sport England has made this investment, and are confident that the National Lottery funding can help us bring more resources into community sport, from business and other partners, so that we can have a truly transformative effect on sport in London.”
Sport England’s Regional Strategic League Hannah Bladen is looking forward to seeing how clubs benefit from the funding and the role London Youth will play in driving the Getting Ready Sports Programme forward.
Quade Taylor, 19, is a professional footballer at Crystal Palace however he started out at SYCT and gained leadership qualifications along with participating in Getting Ready when it first launched in 2009. This is what he had to say about his memories of Getting Ready.
Mark Wood Snr, is the Youth Club Manager at SYCT and he spoke to us about how well Getting Ready has worked since its launch in 2009 and about some of the success stories at SYCT.
You can read Rosie's latest blog on Getting ready here.
