GIRLS GET MOVING ON GOVERNMENT CRIME AGENDA

LOCSP Press Release: Tuesday 1 September 2009

GIRLS GET MOVING ON GOVERNMENT CRIME AGENDA
Free sports taster sessions for girls aged 8-21 at SCORE

Leyton, London - Up and down the country this week girls will be joining together to get moving and get involved in sports, arts and leisure activities as part of leading social inclusion programme, Positive Futures’ National Girls Get Moving Week (31 Aug – 6 Sep).

Leyton Orient Community Sports Programme (LOCSP) Positive Futures will be holding a FREE multi-sports taster event for girls aged 8-21 years old at SCORE, 100 Oliver Road, Leyton this FRIDAY 4TH SEPTEMBER, 4.30PM – 6.30PM with a range of activities including football, basketball, streetdance and handball.

The event is expected to be attended by girls from Hackney, Waltham Forest, Tower Hamlets, Newham, Redbridge and Barking & Dagenham.

The week, the first of its kind, includes summer camps, beach sports days, yoga, ice skating and knife awareness workshops. It aims to inspire more girls into physical activity, increase participation levels of young girls on the programme and help support the Government’s drive to tackle youth crime, particularly the rise in girl-related underage drinking which can lead to crime, disorder and nuisance.

Youth crime is being tackled through the Government’s Youth Crime Action Plan, a three-year programme targeting intensive activity in priority areas, and this initiative as part of the Positive Futures programme specifically supports a focus on girls who might be drawn into crime.

The week also supports the Government’s Open Drive, which seeks to make full use of the government’s investment in positive activities to increase provision and participation on a Friday and Saturday night, particularly of those young people who are most at risk of getting involved in anti-social behaviour.

The Positive Futures programme, managed by young people’s charity Catch22 and funded by the Home Office, has 118 projects working with young people aged 9 -19 in some of the most deprived areas of the country. LOCSP currently work on five of these projects across east London.

Joyce Moseley, Chief Executive, Catch22 said:
“Positive Futures projects are fantastically successful in engaging girls in activities that are fun and exciting, and this is clear when you look at the diverse range of activities on offer for Girls Get Moving Week. When our project workers can build relationships of trust and respect with girls, they open up new opportunities for achieving, education and employment.”

LOCSP are working with Positive Futures to encourage girls across the country to get involved by either joining in with activities on offer or creating their own.

If you would like to get involved and to find out about a Positive Futures projects in east London then call Shamajul Motin, LOCSP Community Development Officer on 020 8556 5973 or email shamajul.motin@locsp.org.