Wyre Forest Community Housings youth football tournament
An inter-estate football tournament for youths aged between 12 and 15 years old was held during the schools' half term break on Wednesday 1st June 2011.
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Show Racism the Red Card work in partnership with organisation’s around the UK in organising our educational events at football clubs. Over the years we have had a lot of support for events in the West Midlands from Barnardo’s, who were recently involved in organising a positive football event for young people in the Wyre Forest area. Paul Powell from Barnardo’s gave us this report of the day:
An inter-estate football tournament for youths aged between 12 and 15 years old was held during the schools' half term break on Wednesday 1st June 2011.
Wyre Forest Community Housings' Neighbourhood Wardens organised the sporting event in conjunction with Redditch YMCA, Barnardo's and the ContinU Trust. The tournament took place at Habberley Playing Fields next to Baxter College, Kidderminster, between 11am and 4pm.
The event enabled young people across the Wyre Forest to interact with each other and take part in physical activity. The day was also used to promote communities coming together and encouraging responsible citizenship.
Positive sportsmanship was encouraged throughout the event, including the promotion of football's equality and anti-racism charity, 'Show Racism the Red Card'.
Several professional football clubs, such as Birmingham City and Chelsea, kindly donated signed photographs of top players that were used as prizes for various crime prevention themed competitions.
The event has been supported by funds from AimHigher through the ContinU Trust's 'Opening Doors' Programme. The programme arranges a variety of career advice and citizenship themed projects for young people in the local area.
The Neighbourhood Wardens are part of The Community Housing Group, a social landlord based in Kidderminster that has expanded and diversified over its 11 year existence. The Company is a customer and community focussed organisation, and as the commercial areas of the business have developed the surpluses generated have been used to improve services for customers and meet the needs of the wider community.
Ray Brookes, Group Chief Executive of The Community Housing Group, who presented the winning medals at the tournament said: "Events like these are a fantastic way of bringing communities together and promoting issues, such as citizenship, community cohesion team work and tackling anti-social behaviour by providing positive alternatives".
