As you know last month we started our Let Us Introduce feature. Let us introduce highlights the work of charities and community projects helping society through sport. Our own strap line ‘Sport Inspires – be part of it’, although directed at our corporate partners, points to our belief of the importance in providing sporting facilities and opportunity to all. Sport brings structure and pride to the younger members of a community. These projects are important and the threat to their existence is wrong. It is cheaper to fund projects, similar to the ones below, than to pay for the consequences of our youth drifting into crime and drugs. It is cheaper to fund these projects to improve health than to treat illness resulting in lack of exercise.
Let us introduce Access Sport
Founded in 2004 Access Sport is a dynamic charity whose mission is to give more children, particularly in disadvantaged areas, access to a wide range of quality local sport. We look to harness the proven power of sport to tackle social exclusion, inactivity and obesity in areas where help is most needed. We achieve this through empowering the inspirational community volunteers who set up and run local sports clubs with cash, expert advice and networking to help create thriving clubs which get more people positively engaged.
Access Sport began it’s first club partnership in 2005. By January 2007 Access Sport had 31 clubs and had attracted 650 new young participants and by the end of 2009 we had achieved:
• 115 partner clubs across 21 sports
• 16,000 children with improved access to sport
o 3,300 new children participating regularly at clubs
o 7,000 children at SportsJAMs
o 5,340 children already at clubs improved by Access Sport
• 1,000 at new club-school sessions
• 20,000 people attending 7 SportsJAMs
• 400 new coaching qualifications paid for
• 150,000 people with raised awareness of local sports opportunities
Our current Legacy Programme aims to have achieved the following by 2013:
• Provision of a tangible, lasting legacy in the Olympic Host Boroughs of East London (Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets, Waltham Forest, Greenwich) and Bristol.
• Development of 75 clubs
o 50 London clubs
o 25 Bristol Clubs
• 9,000 new you people engaged in regular sports club participation
• 450 newly qualified coaches
• 450 new club volunteers
• Increased youth development opportunities through our Youth Development Legacy Project
• Increased disability provision at our clubs through our Disability Legacy Project
• Delivery of 5 new BMX tracks and clubs in each of the Olympic boroughs through our BMX Legacy Project
• Increased regular female sports participation through our Active Women project
Realising the potential of community sports clubs
• We focus our financial support and advice on boosting the youth sections of community sport clubs in the UK’s most deprived areas.
• We work with inspirational club leaders who believe in the power of sport to
help transform young lives but who lack the support to make the most of their clubs.
• Community sports clubs provide a vehicle for regular and sustained participation with built-in pathways for progression.
• Linking clubs effectively into NGB and local authority support networks and developing club-school links is crucial.
Our model for community sports club development
• We focus on three key 'pillars' of club development: Growth, Sustainability and Youth Development
• Access Sport’s local project manager draws on local knowledge and face to face meetings to select the right clubs and, crucially, the right club leaders who have the motivation and potential to grow the youth sections of their clubs.
• Each club then works face to face with our project manager to create a bespoke development plan over two years. Utilising £4,000 each club increases participation, reaches out to local kids, families and schools, increases capacity by creating new coaches and volunteers.
• Our projects address the key barriers to participation by subsidising participation fees, providing free equipment, raising awareness of local sports opportunities, linking the club to local initiatives and to the NGBs and Sport England for long term support.
• Particular focus is on bringing through local youngsters to give them the opportunity to learn coaching, life and management skills which improve their employability.
• Our work across a range of sports creates a new generation of community serving, youth focused clubs, giving genuine choice in deprived areas where access to opportunities in general, and to sport in particular, is poor.
• Good community clubs create the bridge into both regular year-round and adult participation which a pure schools led approach cannot achieve. Clubs also reach out to those who may be alienated from the school system.
• In many cases we have helped clubs to double participation and more.
Our Projects
Our current Legacy Programme is to develop 75 clubs (50 in London and 25 in Bristol) by 2013 creating a successful and transferrable 'blueprint' for club development in deprived urban areas. Our Legacy Programme aims to engage 9,000 new young people regularly in club sport and qualify 450 new coaches and 450 new volunteers and includes the following projects:
• Active Women Project (in partnership with Sport England): aiming to increase female participation in community sports.
• Disability Legacy Project (in partnership with The Peter Harrison Foundation): aiming to increase clubs provisions to attract more disabled members.
• Youth Development Legacy Project (in partnership with Comic Relief): aiming to help young people develop and gain key life and employability skills through their community sports club.
• BMX Legacy Project (in partnership with local boroughs): aiming to create a fully equipped BMX club and track in each of the five London Olympic boroughs.
• Business Mentoring Project: aiming to enhance club development, impact and sustainability through matching teams of corporate mentors with community sports clubs.
To find out more about Access Sport and to donate visit their website www.accesssport.org.uk
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