Rotherham United CST deliver a combination of traditional youth clubs sessions, detached youth work, outreach and sports activities across the borough of Rotherham. This has enabled us to strengthen our relationship with people from diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds.
Due to Premier League, Sport England, Controlling Migration, South Yorkshire Sport and Police and Crime Commissioner funding we have been able to target young people and adults from areas across the borough and more specifically in high BME areas such as Ferham, Eastwood and Masborough. This has allowed us to engage Slovakian, Asian, Roma and White British disadvantaged people. Subsequently, we have implemented educational work covering hate crime and how to report it through the appropriate channels, which runs through the core of our provision. Additionally, in an attempt to inspire ambition, we offer traineeships for young people aged 16-18 and 19-24, leading on to a clear progression path onto our apprenticeships. This allows positive members of the diverse communities the opportunity become an ambassador for cohesion, integration and inclusion using the power of football as vehicle.
We have sought opportunities to bring young people and adults together on several occasions. Most notably we ran a Building Stronger Communities netball festival as part of the Controlling Migration Fund, which had over 120 women in attendance from Ferham, Eastwood, Masborough, Wath and Maltby. Our Building Stronger Communities residential was also an opportunity to bring 60 young people together from a number of schools such as Wath Comp, Maltby Academy, Clifton Community School, Oakwood Academy, Newman School, Brinsworth Academy and Wingfield Academy. For several of our group it was the first time they had been away from home providing a great opportunity to foster community cohesion.
Through our provision we have created fantastic relations with women from the Asian, Tamil and Pakistani communities who participate in weekly netball, badminton and circuit sessions. The sessions are not only designed to engage people in physical activity, but also to increase confidence and resilience. From this, we have facilitated the process of a number of women attending external sports sessions with people in attendance from various diverse cultures and backgrounds.
As part of the Controlling Migration Fund we have strengthened our relationship with people from new merging communities in Rotherham, by delivering pre-accredited ESOL, combined with sport and physical activity. We have aimed to educate new migrants living in Rotherham in English, hate crime, nutrition and sport. A huge part of the work we do is to give our beneficiaries the opportunity increase their quality of life whilst living in Rotherham.
The photo above is from our Cohesion residential where the young person was part of a social action project in a care home.