Boxing clever: Burnage Against Discrimination

Tariq at BADWhen Tariq Iqbal, a learning mentor at Burnage Media Arts College, broached the idea of a boxing club with his head teacher in September 2006, he had much bigger ideas than creating just another sports club. A lifelong resident in Burnage, Tariq was deeply aware of the problems that young people faced there, and understood their needs.

Racial tensions, together with anti-social behaviour and a prevailing gang culture in the area meant that some of the school students' potential was compromised, and relationships with the wider community were fragile.

Tariq knew that boxing was a great medium for engaging with young people and for promoting social inclusion - and he was not the only one. When he took the project to the next level, gaining the support of the Police, Manchester Multi-Agency Gang Strategy, the Army, the Navy, the RAF, Burnage Mult-Agency Group and the Fire Service, as well as several funders, it really began to fly.

Tariq says: ‘Boxing has many benefits which translate into other areas of life, including promoting good citizenship, and issues of diet, recreation, drug use and anti-social behaviour, through a combination of sport and youth work'.

The boxing club now boasts state of the art equipment and facilities, as well as excellent coaching in boxing, wrestling and kickboxing. Over 200 people from both the school and local community use the club each week, promoting cohesion and inclusion. The project is now reaching a stage where its impact in promoting social change is measurable, and Tariq is thrilled at the success of the project he started with little more than a big idea and a lot of enthusiasm.

To develop the project, Tariq enlisted the support of the Gio team, led by Claire Davis. Both Claire Davis and Claire Anderson, Advice Worker have helped Tariq pin down the aims and objectives he wanted to achieve, and showed him ways of demonstrating how great this project was to funders.

‘Burnage Against Discrimination is one of those rare projects which take a really innovative approach to engaging young people. Tariq's been able to work with young people who would not be reached by any other service, to dramatic improvement', she says.

With the Gio Project's support, the boxing club is now negotiating its biggest opportunity yet: purpose-built premises as part of the rebuild of Burnage Media Arts College. As Tariq says, ‘With the new premises in place, the potential of this project will really be unlocked. We can see it developing far beyond it's current boundaries - the sky's the limit!'

A tender success story: The Pankhurst Centre, Chorlton-on-Medlock 

The Pankhurst Centre is a vibrant, busy hub of activity, not least because it plays host to the Probation Service's Women's Programme. For several years now, Yvonne Edge, the centre's manager, has successfully delivered on a contract to provide premises and support to the service. But in November last year, she learned that the contract was to be put out to tender for the first time. Having never entered into the tendering process before, Yvonne was understandably apprehensive.

Yvonne made contact with the Gio Project and attended our training on Commissioning and Tendering, to develop an understanding of the issues involved. Later, we met for a 1-2-1 session where we went through her tender document and the procurement guidance in detail.

Yvonne says that the support she received was ‘invaluable help to me and spurred me on to polish and finalise the bid. I received professional support on a very accessible basis from two very committed women.'

Just a few weeks later, Yvonne contacted us again with some fantastic news: not only had her tender bid been successful to support delivery for 7 programmes for women in the South of Manchester, but she has also been asked to support delivery of another 5 programmes for women in the North of Manchester.

Yvonne says, ‘We are absolutely delighted that this means that we can continue to work with one of our priority groups, women offenders, for the next three years at least.'

The value of the contract that the Pankhurst Centre has secured means that they have achieved a greater level of sustainability for the next three years as a substantial proportion of this income is not ring fenced.