COMMUNITY

The Metropolitan Housing Trust (MHT) have partnered up with R&T on a new Community Club Initiative aimed at engaging young people on the Chalk Hill Estate, Wembley, with the long-term intention of using basketball as a tool to encourage community cohesion in the local area.

The new project is a further extension of the rapidly expanding R&T led community basketball plan and is being run from Chalk Hill Primary School, situated in the heart of the Estate. Project manager, Jackson Gibbons commented "Our ethos at Reach and Teach is about making new and exciting basketball participation opportunities more accessible to the local community, so bringing this project right to the doorsteps of the Chalkhill Estate residents is a great fit and we're looking forward to developing a thriving new club in the heart of the community".

As part of the project young participants from the Estate are put through their paces each week, learning key basketball fundamentals in preparation for entry into the London Community Basketball League. A key component of the project is also about using basketball as a learning tool for the delivery of key life skills such as goal setting, learning the value of dedicated hard work and understanding how to work as part of a team.

The overall aim of the project for both R&T and MHT is to have an active and well sustained, community led basketball club on the Estate for years to come. The building blocks are already in place to usher in the emergence of the 'Chalk Hill Chargers' Basketball Club, over the course of the next 6 months. Lekan Ojumu, a projects officer for MHT, has played an integral role in the facilitating of this new initiative and believes “With the positive interaction opportunities our organisations are providing I have already seen a dramatic change in the volume of young people participating in basketball in the local area, not only giving them something to do but also providing their parents with an activity they can be involved in with the children.”