Barclays Unveils Cricket Scheme
Barclays has launched a grass-roots cricket initiative called StreetChance, to be supported by the bank’s Spaces for Sports programme, which looks to tackle the issue of youth crime.
The three-year project is being delivered initially across ten London boroughs and uses cricket to engage young people from a range of backgrounds in areas affected by youth crime and anti-social behaviour.
The project aims to instill positive values in young people such as self confidence, team spirit and mutual respect, and enhance relationships with others, including schools, police and the wider community.
It is a partnership between Chance to shine, Barclays Spaces for Sports, Cricket for Change, the Metropolitan Police Service and Positive Futures; a social inclusion project funded mainly by the Home Office.
StreetChance supported by Barclays Spaces for Sports will aim, in the first year, to involve 5,000 young people in and out of school time across London.
The in-school activity, based on the Cricket Foundation’s Chance to shine model, provides 25 hours of professional cricket coaching and competition during the summer term. Out of school hours, young people from schools and the local community will take part in a three-hour cricket session every week for 40 weeks each year.
The sessions will use Cricket for Change’s “Street 20”, a fast-paced version of tape-ball cricket, where each innings last for 20 balls and games last for just 20 minutes. It is very accessible and can be played with limited equipment, using a tennis ball bound with tape to replicate a cricket ball. Street 20 competitions will take place across London, with a Grand Final in the autumn.
In addition to the core programme, local Positive Futures teams will run self-development projects, with support from school liaison officers, to re-enforce messages about social exclusion, gang membership, drug and alcohol misuse, possession of weapons and remaining in education.
The 10 London boroughs involved in the first year are: Brent, Croydon, Ealing, Hackney, Kensington and Chelsea, Lambeth, Lewisham, Southwark, Tower Hamlets and Wandsworth. The Lambeth out of school sessions will take place at the Barclays Spaces for Sports site at Lillian Bayliss. In the second and third year, the project will run in 20 and 30 London boroughs respectively.
