The Blair Project, which offers young people a combination of STEM activities and vocational skills training to help them connect to a brighter future and provide a route to employability, has been selected by Sported as one of the twelve case studies to feature in this year’s Times and Sunday Times Christmas appeal.
The Blair Project is a member of Sported, the UK’s largest network of community groups supporting 500,000 young people to reach their full potential. Sported’s network consists of 2,600 community sports groups across the UK representing 100 different sports, from parkour to paddle-boarding, boxing to baseball and kabaddi to kayaking. These groups tackle the most serious social issues affecting communities including youth violence, discrimination, and poverty.
Charlotte Wace, Northern Correspondent at The Times, recently visited The Blair Project to see for herself how the organisation is supporting young people aged 13-19 years who are disengaged from mainstream education, at risk of exclusion or suffering disadvantage. During her visit Charlotte met with some of the young people who have benefited from The Blair Project’s support.
One of these young people was Bradley, who first started with The Blair Project when he was 15 years old. Bradley was in foster care, and was a pupil at a school for young people with specialist educational needs. Before joining The Blair Project, Bradley thought he was destined for a ‘low-level job’. The Blair Project’s STEM activities which include computer aided design and 3D printing of kart components has been of huge support to Bradley and helped grow his aspirations and ambitions. In the last few years Bradley has gained a wide range of tech skills as well as numerous accredited 3D printing qualifications and completed an engineering course at college. He now works as an engineering technician for a large company.
Bradley explains: “My original job, I was going to be a ground worker, a low-level job cos that’s all that I thought I could do. That’s why when I met The Blair Project it really opened my eyes as to what I am truly capable of doing. Jobs that I never thought I could do, I am now doing. I discovered I had a natural aptitude for engineering. The Blair Project has changed my life for the better.”
Nicola Walker, CEO of Sported adds: “The Blair Project is a wonderful example of the way in which sport can be used to engage young people and provide them with routes to more positive futures. There are countless numbers of similar stories across the UK which reflect the critical role sport plays in the lives of young people. Our work at Sported is to ensure that groups like The Blair Project can grow their support for young people during these difficult times.”
Nile Henry, founder at The Blair Project, said: “Diversity and inclusion in motorsport, tech and engineering is our core purpose. Our ProtoEV STEM Challenge taps into the climate change activism of urban youth by providing hands-on opportunities for marginalised young people to participate in the retrofitting used petrol go karts and turning them into fully electric e-karts, which they get to test and race to see which is the fastest and most energy efficient.
“By making STEM learning fun, we are building the diverse talent pipeline this country needs to fuel the electric revolution and create brighter futures for marginalised young people.
“Joining Sported was the best thing we ever did. Their dedicated support has made such a huge difference to the sustainability of our organisation which has allowed us to grow and flourish. More recently they introduced us to a major motorsport brand who have agreed to provide internships, apprenticeships and scholarships for young people coming off our programmes. We could never have achieved this without Sported. They go the extra mile!”
The visit took place as Sported has been chosen as one of the three charities supported by the Times and Sunday Times Christmas Appeal this year. Sported believes that being part of the appeal will help mobilise public support for community sports groups up and down the country who use sport to create change. The focus will be on harnessing the community spirit fostered through the pandemic to boost local volunteering and generate the funds needed to help communities respond to the impact of Covid-19 and sustainably rebuild.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, The Blair Project’s motorsport STEM programmes had to be postponed. To keep the organisation sustainable during these uncertain times, The Blair Project is now working on developing a learning app that uses gamification so it can continue to provide young people with the ultimate hands-on motorsport STEM education learning experience involving the design, building and racing of virtual electric go karts. The app which will use augmented reality will be designed by students from Trafford College with support from mobile technology company Apadmi, with the aim of generating higher student engagement and interest in STEM, by making learning fun and effortless (child’s play) and allowing students to learn anywhere and anytime. Sported’s advice and support has helped ensure this can happen.
Since it was established six years ago, The Blair Project has grown rapidly in response to an urgent need to engage vulnerable young people who have fallen out of the mainstream education system. The organisation serves Greater Manchester, and has supported 560 young people to date. It plans to roll out its ProtoEV E-Kart Challenge into Oxfordshire and London in 2021 with the aim of working with over 800 young people a year on the physical challenge, reaching thousands more through its ProtoEV app.
Sported has been working with The Blair Project for four years, helping provide advice and guidance on funding applications, mentoring and impact measurement. The Blair Project also attended regional networking opportunities set up by Sported.
It has never been a harder time to be a young person growing up in the UK. One in 4 children live in poverty; recorded knife crime has more than doubled in the past five years, 80% of young people note their mental health has worsened in recent months and youth unemployment is at an all-time high. In addition, 750 youth centres and more than 4,500 youth workers have been lost over the last 10 years and spending on youth services in England and Wales has been cut by 70% in real terms. Sported’s network is continuing to make a difference to hundreds of thousands of young people’s lives across the country.
