Queen Mary Students’ Union working on community project
Queen Mary Students’ Union Community Sport, in partnership with the London FA and West Ham United Foundation, have been working together to establish a free community football project in East London.
The project sees coaches from West Ham delivering fun, engaging coaching sessions to anybody within the 16-25 age group, regardless of ability, gender or experience.
The sessions began in mid-November with over 50 local young people present for our initial tournament, which was won by a team from Newham College.
Following the New Year break, sessions are taking place weekly from Friday, January 15 (4-5pm) at Stepney Green Astroturf.
No registration is needed, and anybody interested in taking part in the sessions is encouraged to come down, turn up and play.
Gareth Crewe, Community Sport co-ordinator for Queen Mary Students’ Union, said: “This is project allows young people to improve their football skills with coaches from a local Premier League club, in a relaxed and friendly environment.
“We are hoping to build on the success of our November tournament and share this fantastic opportunity with as many young people from the community as possible!”
n Queen Mary Students’ Union Community Sport programme aims to increase activity levels within Tower Hamlets using students as sports coaches and officials. Since August 2013 they have trained 90 students, facilitating over 1,000 hours of sport in the borough.
Through Community Sport, students can hugely increase their employability by taking on voluntary and paid placements with local sporting organisations, gaining free coaching and officiating qualifications and using their experience within sport to develop a number of transferable skills.
In 2015 they were nominated by Times Higher Education in the category of “Outstanding Contribution to the Local Community”, as well as by London Sport in the category of “Bigger and Better Workforce”
The Union provides a number of student-run activities, like sports clubs, societies, student media and volunteering. It also provides student-led events and services in Mile End and Whitechapel including a sport and fitness centre and several shops and venues. See .qmsu.org/union for more.
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