The three year partnership will focus on the use of boxing as a tool to bolster Sheffield Futures’ community involvement work and inspire young people in the city to achieve wider personal development through sport.
The partnership will involve members of the GB Boxing squad supporting Sheffield Futures’ community initiatives and fundraising activities.
As part of the launch, young people from Sheffield Futures and Empire Boxing Club visited the GB Boxing training centre at the English Institute of Sport Sheffield where they had a Q&A with European heavyweight silver medallist, Cheavon Clarke, and a training session with senior GB Boxing coaches, David Alloway, Paul Walmsley and Tony Davis.
Matt Holt, Chief Executive, GB Boxing explained: “GB Boxing has been based in Sheffield for 10 years now and we felt it was important for us to do something to support the city in the same way that it has supported us, so decided to established a partnership with a local charity.
“We spoke to a range of organisations and the thing that impressed us most about Sheffield Futures was that the work it does is so aligned with the boxing and the social benefits the sport delivers.
Sheffield Futures is all about inspiring people, personal development through sport and giving every young person an opportunity to succeed, no matter how difficult their lives have been.
This reflects the experiences of many of our squad and is in-tune with the ethos of boxing and everyone at GB Boxing is very much looking forward to working with Sheffield Futures on a range of activities to spread the benefits of the sport to young people and communities across the city.”
Boxing is widely acknowledged to be a helpful tool in combatting a wide range of anti-social behaviours and providing solutions to help address problems covering health, education and crime.
Sheffield Futures aims to harness and this in its community work and use boxing as a tool to engage with you people in socially deprived communities throughout the city.
Sheffield Futures Community Youth Teams have seen the benefits boxing can bring to young people otherwise at risk of falling into risky antisocial behaviour, including:
Healthy eating and lifestyle: Maximising physical ability through nutrition and healthy lifestyle
Mental health: Feel good factor achieved through exercise and team sport
Social skills: Interaction and engagement which builds confidence and enjoyment in positive social interaction
Self-control & anger management: Self-control of skills and the ability to be mentally strong in exercising this
Self-defence and safety: Helping young people to deliver safe skills for self defence
Racism and homophobia: Discussion of legendary boxers that had been publicly victimised due to their race and the ethical implications
Gender: Conversations around the evolution in women’s boxing and its increasing popularity
Gail Gibbons, Chief Executive of Sheffield Futures, added: “In our experience, boxing has been shown to be an instrumental sport for increasing confidence and self-esteem in young people as well as developing, health, social and communication skills, so this partnership is a natural fit for us.
“We are so excited to have been chosen by GB Boxing as a charity partner and we are absolutely thrilled to be able to help even more young people through a sport which we know from experience, will resonate strongly with Sheffield’s young people.”
