Skip to content
Main Content
05/06/2008
ABAE launches pioneering youth schemes
The Amateur Boxing Association has launched two new initiatives aimed at changing the lives of young people through sport.
The ASDAN Boxing Certificate of Personal Effectiveness is the result of a partnership between the ABAE, ASDAN and the Department of Culture, Media and Sport. It is a qualification the equivalent of a GCSE and is the first education initiative to be launched through a governing body of sport.
Barry McGuigan meets the Sheffield youngsters piloting the Step into Sport scheme
The ABAE hopes that the syllabus will engage with disaffected and marginalised young people and help them celebrate their achievements through a nationally recognised qualification.
ASDAN chief executive Roger White said that the scheme was a result of a hunt for ways to celebrate the achievements of young people at a time when media coverage is heavily focused on the negative.
He explained that although the qualification is boxing-focused, it encompasses a range of basic skills that are vital to the development of young people; teaching them about health and safety, diet and nutrition and social responsibility, while encouraging them to design leaflets, produce videos and debate moral issues.
Schools Minister ED Balls emphasised the importance of offering enough sports to cater for a wide range of children's interests. 880 schools are now offering boxing as a curricular or extra-curricular option, a 500% rise since 2004.
Attending the launch were four children from King Ecgbert School in Sheffield, which has been involved in a pilot of the government's Step into Sport scheme. Working alongside Sheffield boxing development officer Paul Porter, the school is now one of three schools in the area to have successfully forged links with Woodseats amateur boxing club.
Woodseats coaches Brendan Warburton and Tony Burke were accompanied by King Ecgbert pupils Jake Grocutt, Nathan Hastings and Ben Carnell, who have all taken part in the boxing tutor course and are coaching pupils from a local primary school with success. Another pupil, Danyal Khan, has worked his way through the boxing awards and is now awaiting his first bout as a fully carded boxer. Joining them was Woodseats boxer Sarah Loukes, who will be completing the course next year in order to support the coaches' work in schools.
The school's sports coordinator Natalie Coleman said that the scheme was one of King Ecgbert's recent success stories and that children from the school's autistic pupil unit were also benefiting.
ABAE president Richard Caborn MP said: "This will have a profound effect. It shows that we believe our sport can affect the lives of young people for the better."
Minister for Sport Gerry Sutcliffe said the ASDAN scheme was a model that other sports could employ effectively: "The ABAE are leading the way. It's inspirational, getting people active."
And Ian Stewart MP thanked the hundreds of boxing coaches nationwide who are helping to shape young people who are sometimes inaccessible to mainstream education.
The second initiative launched was Gloves not Guns. Gangs or Knives, a programme designed to give youngsters a diversion and offer them safer communities.
The scheme is based on a programme launched by USA Boxing - America's boxing governing body - and has been piloted at the Damilola Taylor Centre in Peckham. It is hoped that it will role out through the ABAE's 750 boxing clubs and is championed by Amir Khan and Ricky Hatton, who will deliver boxing master classes.
Paul King explained boxing's role in engaging with youngsters in an environment they can relate to, while channelling aggression and anti social behaviour: "Our sport has been the social glue in some areas, drawing schools and communities together."
Former world champions Lloyd Honeyghan and Barry McGuigan joined veteran coach Tony Burns and boxers from London's Repton club to champion the scheme.
Richard Caborn said: "The Gloves not Guns, Gangs or Knives scheme is a great project using sport to combat crime and to get youths off the streets into a controlled and disciplined environment that promotes positive activity through ABAE clubs, schools and community centres."
More information on both initiatives will be available soon.