- Area:
- South West England
- Release date:
- 26 4 2013
CATS was set up in 2005, in Bude, Cornwall in answer to anti-social behaviour. It now has 15 branches, helping around 2000 young people to make a positive contribution to their local area.
It gives youngsters in the area the opportunity to get involved in their community. This positive action is then rewarded with sports activities and/or healthy living rewards.
In 2007, they received an award from People’s Millions of £38,540, to tackle issues of anti-social behaviour and crime through the use of sports and community based activities.
In the CATS scheme, young people who carry out activities that help and support the community are given awards; like vouchers for activities like swimming, windsurfing and mountain biking.
One example of the kinds of activities available was run by Bude CATS, in conjunction with Budehaven Community School and Raven Surf School has just completed its second ‘Urban Surf’ Course for 16 young people run over an eight week period. Initially the young people (who had been highlighted by teachers, heads of year or the police) were invited to attend a surf session to see if a) they enjoyed surfing and would want to continue and b) to be observed by the coaches in regard to attitude should they wish to commit to the programme.
The programme was an immediate hit; it offered the young people the chance to learn a new, cool, healthy lifestyle in the form of surfing and overcome personal challenges and barriers such as confidence, communication and self-esteem.
Matthew said, “The best part of Urban Surf was learning to surf and making friends”. “The worst bit”, according to Leila, “was getting the wetsuit boots off and being cold!”
It is also fantastic news that CATS have also just received a Prime Minister’s Big Society Award. As CATS Co-Founder, Denise May MBE says:
“As co-founder of Community Action Through Sport, I am delighted that we have been awarded the 10 Downing Street Big Society Award. The support of the Big Lottery Fund has enabled us to achieve the outcomes which have led to this success. Our charity promotes, rewards and recognises young people for making a positive impact in their own communities and has several tranches of development through volunteering, fundraising, sports coaching, community engagement and supporting young people led projects.
With the financial support from the Big Lottery Fund, we have been able to develop 13 new branches; support young people to develop projects for young people; run eight new sports diversionary projects; run a further six surf reward weekends this year for over 300 young people from inner cities, who have made a positive impact in their own communities, as well as using our own youngsters from Cornwall and Devon to act as hosts, promoting an inner city and rural mix.
The Big Society Award is a great honour and reflects all the hard work from young people across the South West and we hope that this recognition will help to support the growth of more CATS branches and continue to develop even wider partnership working across communities. This multi-agency approach has strengthened the opportunities available for the young people.
We were thrilled when Prime Minister David Cameron saw the value of the work of CATS and said ‘“The essence of the project is about engendering a culture within young people of making a positive contribution to their communities, which is then rightly recognised and rewarded and I congratulate CATS for this well-deserved Big Society Award."’